| Topic: |
Religions > Bible |
| User: |
"rhuff163" |
| Date: |
24 Oct 2006 11:05:36 PM |
| Object: |
About a hard heart |
Devotional Guide
For the week of October 22, 2006
THE DAY OF THE OPEN DOOR
About a hard heart
To read the Bible in one year, today Read: 1 Kings 7-9
To Know:
łTherefore they could not believe. For Isaiah again said, ŚHe has blinded
their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they should see with their eyes
and perceive with their heart, and turn for me to heal them.˛ (Jn. 12:39,40)
The God most Americans believe in would never harden hearts. The God we meet
in the Bible does. The truth is that the God of many who consider themselves
Christians is no different than the god of American culture. Such believers
have never struggled with the dangerous dimension in the Lord. Whose heart
does God harden? -- that is the question. Certainly God is just. He wouldnąt
harden hearts that are by nature soft. He hardens the hardhearted.
The hardening of God is judicial. It is righteous. Many years ago I watched
while an unjust judge denied a wife justice in his court. It was as plain as
day that the judge had made up his mind against all the evidence. He decided
for injustice. Is God also an unjust judge?
Only one man in all of history was born with a heart disposed toward God.
All the rest of us entered this world in desperate trouble. The natural
human heart is stony ground. If God is to have his way in us he must first
transform our nature. When God hardens anyone he does not begin with a
person who is soft toward him. He hardens the hard. The hardening is
judicial. It is God doing according to what one deserves.
To Do:
It is the wise man or woman who acts immediately whenever faith is present.
We never know how long the Lord will leave the door into his presence open.
Wisdom is to enter before it is shut. When the door shuts, our naturally
hard hearts will never again be disposed to seek him. Today is the day of
salvation.
To Ask:
Father, thank you for softening my hard heart.
10256$-10256
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