Supernatural Transformation: Change Your Heart Into God’s Heart (12 page)

5. A Hardened Heart Justifies Wrongdoing and
Blames Others

Earlier, we discussed how the heart can grow cold after someone has been hurt or wronged, and that this coldheartedness can easily become hardheartedness. Many such people seem to have excuses for their wrong behavior. For instance, they may say something like the following:

• “I am not a good mother because I grew up without a mother myself, and no one taught me how to be a parent. You can’t expect me to do a better job as a mother.”
  

• “I have a blunt personality because I never received love at home while I was growing up. So, take me or leave me—this is who I am, and I’m not going to change now.”
  

• “I won’t help out in any church program because I was hurt by someone in my previous church when I volunteered to help in a particular ministry, and I don’t want to experience that again.”
  

Some people manifest a hardened heart by having a thousand reasons for remaining mediocre and doing nothing. They refuse to seek change in their life or to commit to anything. They continually justify their reluctance to become involved, and they always place the blame for their problems or bad attitudes on others. Accordingly, their behavior does not just
damage
most of their relationships—it
destroys
them. It isolates these people from those whom they love. It stifles their opportunities to receive healing for their heart. And, it squelches their growth—spiritual, mental, and emotional. Freedom from a hardened heart requires a radical decision to allow the Spirit of God to heal and transform your inner being.

6. A Hardened Heart Resists Open Communication and Refuses Correction

Good communication is a key element in the foundation of every healthy relationship. However, some additional signs of a hardened heart are a strong resistance to two-way communication and an indifferent attitude toward the perspectives and needs of others. A person with a hardened heart will often ignore those who try to appeal to him to recognize how his attitudes or actions are hurting those who are close to him. He doesn’t want to hear counsel or instruction from anyone. For example, if he belongs to a church, he usually believes he is above the spiritual authority of his pastor, his spiritual father, or other church leaders. He doesn’t recognize those to whom God has delegated authority, so he refuses to hear their spiritual guidance or correction.

When the heart is hardened, it doesn’t submit to authority.

7. A Hardened Heart Seeks Its Interests Alone, Becoming “Religious” and Judgmental

Another sign of a hardened heart is when a person seeks only his own interests, placing himself above God and other people. Often, merely listening to the needs of others seems tedious to him, and he considers it a waste of time to do something about those needs. For example, when a pastor no longer has a heart for serving God’s people, the members of his congregation may begin to represent merely a paycheck to him, while their spiritual condition and needs are no longer a priority in his life. Then, when the members perceive his careless attitude toward them, they will become frustrated and angry. Many may begin to openly air their grievances and/or leave the church.

The Holy Spirit is absent from everything that belongs to
the sinful nature.

Therefore, when a person allows his heart to lose its spiritual sensitivity, he can become egocentric, ambitious, and self-sufficient. Such a person is focused only on the externals of his life, including his reputation among other people—he is all about appearances, and he feels self-righteous about his position. He does not make pleasing God his main concern but rather develops a religious attitude that closes off his mind to the ways in which God is moving. Accordingly, he criticizes everything he does not understand or that is not done according to his preferences. If God speaks to another person rather than to him, he believes that the other person didn’t really receive a word from God; he doesn’t want to feel that anyone else is “better” than he is. He wants to believe he is the only one who hears God’s voice and knows His Word. Consequently, he becomes a modern “Pharisee”—someone who considers himself to be an “absolute lord” of the truth. He behaves as if he is king and judge over all.

The modern “Pharisee” is a lover of self and a servant of self.
He is his own cause and end result.

The above could be a description of Satan. He was created to worship God, but somewhere along the way, his heart grew cold and became hard. Satan no longer wanted to serve God but rather decided to serve himself and his own interests, and he later dragged Adam and Eve along with him in his rebellion by tempting them to sin. The Scriptures say:

How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.” Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit.
(Isaiah 14:12–15)

Satan had been created perfect in every way. (See Ezekiel 28:12–17.) He was apparently the main worshipper of God and the worship leader in heaven. Yet he became so absorbed in himself that he began to rob the worship that belongs to the Lord alone. Satan allowed his God-given gifts to dazzle him and cloud his perspective. He was no longer happy with the position God had granted him, and he believed that he could and should be more than his Creator. He deceived himself, thus opening the door for his heart to become corrupt.

The manner in which Satan became corrupted shows us how a person can fall into self-deception and coldness of heart. For example, suppose an individual who has a certain degree of authority in a church or a business begins to feel he is “better” than his situation, so he indicates that he no longer wants to serve or work there. Based on his own ideas, rather than God’s direction, he may say something like, “My ‘season’ in this ministry has ended. God has something greater for me.”

The worst part of such a scenario is that, often, the type of person who makes such a statement is the one who has contributed the least to the church or business. If he is part of a church, he has usually served the people very little and given only meager amounts in support of the church’s mission. But, while he has given the least, he has demanded—and perhaps taken—the most! Even so, he believes that he should be given greater status and honor, and he is filled with arrogance. Likewise, Satan believed that he no longer had to serve God and should be equal to Him. His heart had hardened, and he could no longer see beyond himself.

8. A Hardened Heart Is Emotionally Cold and Bitter Toward Others

As we discussed earlier, God gave us emotions to help us to connect with other people and to express ourselves. Our emotions also help us to recognize the pain and needs of other people and to empathize with them. The Scriptures show us that Jesus was moved by people’s suffering and needs. He felt deeply for the human race.

For example, in one passage, we read,
“When
[Jesus]
saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd”
(Matthew 9:36). In another instance,
“Jesus wept”
(John 11:35) over the death of a friend. And, He was
“sorrowful and deeply distressed”
(Matthew 26:37) when it came time for Him to die for our sins. Much spiritual, mental, and emotional strength is required for a man to cry as did Jesus, the strongest Man who ever lived. Jesus was so moved by humanity’s predicament of sin and death that He gave up His life for us. He poured out His heart with tears and anguish at Gethsemane on behalf of the salvation of humanity and in anticipation of what it would take to redeem us.

There was no selfishness or hardness in Jesus’ heart. He surrendered His human will so that the divine will could be fulfilled
“on earth as it is in heaven”
(Matthew 6:10; Luke 11:2). In contrast, as we have noted, those who harden their hearts become emotionally cold, concerned only for themselves, not for the welfare of others. They may also become bitter toward other people. The Scriptures warn us,
“
[Look]
carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled”
(Hebrews 12:15). A heart that cultivates bitterness, allowing it to grow, will inevitably become hard and will defile other people with whom it comes into contact.

9. A Hardened Heart Enjoys Sin

Another symptom of a hardened heart is an enjoyment of partaking in sin and in giving free rein to the
“lusts of the flesh”
(2 Peter 2:18). This occurs when people’s sinful nature becomes completely enthroned in their inner being, so that it directs their life. Such people lack a proper fear of God, which would have restrained their corrupt behavior.

In contrast, when a person’s heart is aligned with God’s, he recognizes that sin is only a temporal pleasure that leads to destruction and eternal death, so that he doesn’t want anything to do with it! To avoid a hardened heart that pursues sin, we must follow the example of Moses:

By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.
(Hebrews 11:24–26)

10. A Hardened Heart Holds Back Tithes and Offerings from God

A hardened heart always seeks a reason not to give tithes or offerings to the Lord. To a person whose heart has grown cold, honoring God is not a priority, so he will find excuses to get out of doing so. For example, he may say that God doesn’t require people’s money in order to do His work, or that it is the responsibility of the government alone to help the poor and destitute, and that we should not have to give a portion of our paycheck to alleviate the needs of those less fortunate than we are. Such a mind-set is the opposite of the one belonging to Mary, a follower of Jesus, who gave the best she had to her Lord:

Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. But one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, who would betray Him, said, “Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?”
(John 12:3–5)

Judas’s heart had become corrupt to the point that he pretended to be concerned about those who were poor, when he himself was robbing the funds designated for them:
“This
[Judas]
said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it”
(John 12:6). When Judas saw the great offering of love that Mary poured out to Jesus, his words of rebuke revealed the hardness of his heart.

11. A Hardened Heart Does Not Worship God

When a person does not desire to worship God, it is a clear sign that some hardening of heart has taken place. The person who consistently lives without the manifest presence of God usually becomes used to a religious formality that is far removed from true worship. He essentially practices the absence of the presence of the God whom he claims to serve. In fact, he often rejects the genuine presence of the Lord because it convicts him of his need to repent of his sins and his lack of love and to experience the transformation of his heart.

Dangers and Consequences of Maintaining a Hardened Heart

Now that we know the causes and signs of a hardened heart, let us turn to the serious consequences of allowing this condition to continue in our inner man indefinitely—consequences for our life and for the lives of our descendants.

1. A Fall into Calamity

“Happy is the man who is always reverent, but he who hardens his heart will fall into calamity” (Proverbs 28:14). From my ministerial experience, I can say that the person whose heart has lost its spiritual sensitivity is moving toward disaster. Disobedience and spiritual error will guide his decisions, and his end will be spiritual death, if he does not repent and turn back to God. There is no way for someone whose heart has long been hardened to please God and to walk with Him. Regardless of whether the individual appears holy, if his heart is hardened, God is not present there. All we see is a mere image—a smoke screen. It is false piety, which sooner or later falls to evil.

2. Brokenness, Sometimes Without Remedy

“He who is often rebuked, and hardens his neck, will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy”
(Proverbs 29:1).
The phrase
“hardens his neck”
indicates a refusal to recognize a truth or to change something in yourself that is wrong; it is an insistence on maintaining a false mentality or on making your own ideas and mentality your god. In effect, it is telling God that He is wrong and that His counsel is not needed, which is nothing less than rebellion.

The consequence of the above is to be broken by God, perhaps
“without remedy.”
I sincerely hope that this is not your situation and that it is not too late for you to recognize your condition before the Creator. God is a God of second chances. If you repent and recommit to Him, He can transform your heart and save you from evil, brokenness, and a lost condition.