Hardening of heart

It is very easy for all of us to harden our heart at different times. We harden our heart every time we go against the truth, or light. If we understand what happens in such situations, we will become very sensitive to this, and subsequently very careful.

Think of different situations like this that come our way. When we are talking with someone about something that happened, and the talk turns to what we did wrong, see how our mind works. Immediately excuses or justifications come up in our mind and tempt us to evade the responsibility for our wrong! If we follow those promptings, we harden our heart against the truth. God was bringing up the truth so that we could set things right, receive forgiveness and learn to be more careful next time (Jn.8:32). But if we harden our heart like this, the chances are that it will become natural for us to follow these promptings of our flesh next time, and the voice of the Holy Spirit will become fainter.

Sharing with us some truth about our sins is actually God showing us mercy and giving us an opportunity to acknowledge them, repent and learn to overcome. This is a privilege God gives to us so that we can enter into His freedom a little more. What a great loss we will suffer if we neglect to receive it and act upon it! It is not only that we lose the opportunity, but we also make it harder for us to respond to God in the right way in the future.

We must understand how easily possible it is for us to harden ourselves in this way without even realising what has happened and what we have lost in the bargain. Let us not imagine that hardening of the heart is only for wicked people like Pharaoh of Egypt at the time of Moses. It can happen to us too, and it may have already happened to some lesser or greater extent in our life. We can learn a lesson from the example of Pharaoh. When God asked him to send the people of Israel out of Egypt, and he would not obey, God began to send plagues upon Egypt. When a plague came, Pharaoh would promise to send the people, but after the plague was lifted, he would harden his heart and would not let the people go. After this happened five times, the Lord Himself hardened Pharaoh's heart, and the next five plagues came one after another till he was compelled to let Israel go.

We may not even recognise it when we harden our heart against the voice of the Holy Spirit in our heart convicting us of our sins (Jn.16:8). But we must understand that if we go on like that without repentance, a time may come when it becomes difficult for us to repent (He.12:16,17). Hopefully we won't continue to the place where we fall away from God Himself (He.3:12).

It all depends on what our eyes are set upon in life. If we are living for earthly pleasures or greatness, it will be natural for us not to pay much attention to dealing with sins (Mt.6:24). But if our heart is set towards pleasing the Lord, then we will become more careful about being sensitive to God.