Do not harden your hearts

The theme of Hebrews is Christ is greater than any angel, priest, or old covenant institution; thus each reader, rather than leaving such a great salvation, is summoned to hold on by faith to the true rest found in Christ and to encourage others in the church to persevere.

Starting in chapter three of Hebrews, the author who we do not know, writes about how Jesus is greater than Moses. He says that Moses is the servant in God’s house, and Jesus is the son of the house in essence. And we are his house, if we choose to be. He built us, resides in us.

Then he goes on to say in verses 7-15

A Rest for the People of God

⁷ Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

“Today, if you hear his voice,
⁸ do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
    on the day of testing in the wilderness,
⁹ where your fathers put me to the test
    and saw my works for forty years.
¹⁰ Therefore I was provoked with that generation,
and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;
    they have not known my ways.’
¹¹ As I swore in my wrath,
    ‘They shall not enter my rest.’”

¹² Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. ¹³ But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. ¹⁴ For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. ¹⁵ As it is said,

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

You have a choice to make. To Be Open.

Open your eyes and see him. I mean hello have you looked around you. His beauty is all around you. This screams of an intelligent creator, it could not have just happened.

You have been asked to open your ears. He is calling out to you. He is whispering things to you, that He loves you, cares for you, and knows you and STILL loves you.

And now you have a lot of knowledge, and you have a choice, you can either open your heart to Him, or continue to harden it.

Just as the author of Psalm said, who originally penned these words from Hebrews, will you be like your fathers, who SAW everything that God did for forty years, parting the Red Sea, bringing manna from the sky (food falling down or appearing, whichever it is amazing), the plagues in Egypt. The water out of the rock. So many things they watched and their hearts were hardened toward God.

The opposite of hard is… Soft. That is right. So things can get inside of them. Take this apple for instance, I can jab a fork into it, take this rock I cannot.

God wants to be in our lives, But the condition of our hears is up to us, will we allow him in, will we open the door?

We have a choice, it is either to open up to him, or harden our hearts.

I know what you are thinking though, you are thinking, “Erica, it is hard to open my heart, it is not that easy.”

And I would say I totally get it, it isn’t always easy.

Side note, I was writing this lesson and thinking about opening doors to Jesus and how it seems so easy. But then I thought of all those doors that are not easy to open.

I hate when doors have a pull handle, but really you have to push it, so you look like an idiot trying to pull open a push door, or when they keep one side locked, but not the other side, why, for your own amusement, and to humiliate me, but for real I hate that.  Or those times you think its going to be easy to open the door and it isn’t so your arm just kind of buckles under you and you end up running right into the door. It is not always easy to JUST open the door.

I believe one thing the Israelites lacked when they were marching through the desert was a connection to their heart, yes they SAW all of these things that God did, these amazing things, but they never let them penetrate into their heart.

So when life would come they would be thrown all around, not holding fast or standing firm on their hope in Christ as it says in verse 6. “If indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.” I am reading through Exodus right now and it is crazy to me how quickly they doubt God’s presence after he just showed up in an amazing way. They had people around them with unbelieving hearts leading them astray. They allowed sin to creep in and cause them to doubt God, and in turn it hardened their hearts even more.

So what are you going to do? Are you going to continue to be like one of the Israelites of old and harden your heart toward God? Forgetting everything you have seen and heard him do and say? Or are you going to open your heart toward him, allowing him to come in and change your life.

This is not easy, again, it is difficult. A lot of that is because our hearts are already locked up , so opening them is really difficult.

Opening up the heart, being vulnerable is scary, and intimidating. We do not naturally want to let people in. The real us is usually locked up. We have built these locks all around our hearts to protect them. The first lock went on when one of our parents left, or was far less than what a parent is meant to be. The next lock went on when someone we trusted hurt us, they took advantage of us. Another lock went on when that boy or girl broke our heart and it turns out they didn’t care about us at all. The next lock went on when we really wanted that position, or that team or ____________ that we were hoping for and it didn’t work out, so now we are telling ourselves to not even hope for anything at all. Because it is better than getting hurt. Another one goes on when people say we are ugly, worthless, and will never amount to anything. Another when your friends, who you thought were really good friends, start some bogus rumors, or even worse, they share your secrets with everyone. And we think I knew I shouldn’t have trusted them.

And now our heart looks a lot like this. Chained up and locked up.

So now our heart is impossible to open.

I am right there with ya,  exhausted with hustling with the world. With trying to make it in this world, by this world’s standards. Ya see I am not skinny minnie, I never have been I was a 9 lb baby, okay.  I hated that I just couldn’t be like the girls that wear smalls, and do not even get me started on those that wear extra small. It just wasn’t fair. I was sick of my friends using me, and talking bad about me behind my back, and literally cutting me out of their lives for months at a time. I hated myself, and blamed myself for where I was and who I was. So one day it came to a point where I just couldn’t do it anymore. I was sick of not having value, feeling worthless, running after attention from anyone who would give it to me. My chains and locks that I had been building for years were rattling, my heart couldn’t take it anymore. It wanted freedom. My heart wanted to be free.

I finally came to a place where I had to give my lock to Jesus, I had to let him in. I had to surrender, chains and all at his feet, and hope he would take me the mess I was and all. I picture crawling to him with these chains in my hands, begging him to take it all. And he looks at me with the most compassionate face, reaches out his hand, says, “Daughter, I have always been here.” And he did. I have never looked back at that person I was before I finally feel to my knees before him. NEVER

I finally chose to stop hardening my heart and to open it. Chains, locks, and all laying it at his feet.

So what is it for you? You have a choice just as I did, harden your heart or open it. You have locks and chains around your heart too. They are keeping you from opening your heart. What are they?

Opening up your heart to God is not a one time thing. It is a daily thing. It is continually allowing him in everyday. Because as we have seen with the Israelites life can creep in, sin can creep in and harden our hearts, but if we come back to him each time, our heart will remain soft.

¹² Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. ¹³ But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. ¹⁴ For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. 

Be around people that also want to put Jesus first. The people you are around matters.