Something that is sadly growing in number is the hearts of Christians becoming hardened, becoming desensitized to the world around them. They become what’s called “spiritually calloused” if they let it linger long enough, where they are no longer sensitive to God’s Holy Spirit, along with not loving Him and others. There is a difference between someone who hasn’t been regenerated (born-again) and a believer who has entered into a stage of hardness of heart towards the things of God, so why is this becoming more common? I’ll go over some points of why this happens and I will also go over the importance of knowing the times we’re living in regarding keeping our focus on Christ. Let’s get started!
The main thing to know is that when a believer’s heart hardens, it is the complete opposite of where it should be, and that is loving God and others. It involves neglecting spiritual disciplines that help build faith and it involves an act of the will to let bitterness take root, which ends up defiling them. It is important that we as believers don’t let this calamity take hold of us, for it is contradictory to our witness; we need to be alert for any temptations and know how to handle them, to look for any signs of being hardened. A hardened heart is a serious concern in the life of a believer, and it can corrupt good character if they aren’t careful. The first point is as follows:
Point 1: Hearts harden because believers aren’t staying vigilant.
The Scriptures warn believers to stay vigilant in our walk with Christ, because God knows how crafty the devil is with distracting us with worldly temptations and lusts; the enemy knows which method to use for us to lose focus. When we lose focus on God and begin to indulge ourselves with temptations and acting on them, our hearts start to harden and we start focusing on ourselves more instead of Him. When our hearts harden after sinning, it makes it more difficult to repent, and that is because of rebelling against God. Rebelling against God is a way of expressing defiance against God’s will, and nothing good comes out of going against God’s will.
A hardening of the heart is to basically feel nothing towards God and others, to feel numb towards Him. When you harden your heart after rebelling against God by sinning, you start to feel that numbness towards Him and you end up having an attitude against Him. A hardened heart can affect both Christians and unbelievers, although for the Christian it is an even more dangerous road to be on; unbelievers don’t have the Holy Spirit in them to know any better, but believers in Christ who willfully sin and remain in that sin will bring them to a state of hard-heartedness that will make it harder to repent.
An example of rebellion turning into hardness of heart can be found in the Israelites, the wilderness generation that is found written in the Pentateuch (the first 5 books in the Old Testament). After being miraculously delivered from slavery in Egypt, they were led into the wilderness to go into the land promised by God for them to enter, the land of Canaan, but there were some problems; the wilderness generation was hardened because they weren’t grateful for God’s provisions. The Israelites of that generation would receive one thing and then complain about not having another (like grumbling about not having food or water), and it got to the point where God had them walk around the wilderness for 40 years and forfeit their entry to Canaan, until the very last of that unfaithful generation died off and the younger generation rose up (Numbers 32:13).
We can see that the Israelites of that generation were cut off from Canaan by their consistent complaining and lack of devotion to God, and that’s how it can begin for the believer, by one act of rebellion by either a complaint or a bit of pride in thinking that we know better, and not too much longer after they will end up being a little numb towards our God, who loves us very dearly.
Therefore, staying vigilant is a crucial part in not having a hardened heart, because sin can easily ensnare us to living irrationally, to live for ourselves and even shrink back into the old ways if it comes to it. Feeling that numbness towards God is because of our choosing to remain with a hardened heart and not repent and turn away from the sin that got us there, which is why we need to be vigilant towards God, which means to live uprightly and follow Christ and do some of the basics of Christian living (reading/studying Scripture, prayer, fellowship with the brethren), but the main crucial part is to have faith in Christ and not doubt Him; the wilderness generation had no faith and ended up missing out on their promised land, but that doesn’t mean you have to follow their example. The crucial key of being vigilant is to keep the faith in Christ because when you’re focusing on God, you won’t have time for those distractions.
Point 2: Hearts harden because of the love for people growing cold.
In the Olivet Discourse (Jesus speaking with His most trusted disciples about the signs of the end of the age), Jesus warns that because of the rapid spread of evil practices the love of many will cease (Matthew 24:12); people will stop caring for others, sparing no one. People of any background will turn against one another, even those closest to them, and they will become self-centered.
God commands His people to love one another, for God loves us and expects us to show love to those around us. Loving one another is how the world knows we are God’s disciples, by going the extra mile in helping each other and making sacrifices daily for the benefit of our fellow man. Sometimes that love also means speaking the truth instead of a comforting lie, for it is for their benefit that they know what God expects out of them as believers.
When we let our love for others grow cold, that leaves an open door for our hearts to harden, which is not what God would have for us. God knows the times we’re living in, but the command to love one another is still the same (God is unchanging – He’s the same God past present and future), but it is hard to love people sometimes.
One thing that I believe can help with loving others is praying for those that may wrong you; it will shift your focus off daily aggravations and help keep your heart in the right place. Taking the focus off ourselves and praying for those around us is a choice that we either make or don’t make, and there are consequences on both ends. If we as Christians don’t love the brethren, not only do we not love those that may not know Christ, we also don’t love Christ. In 1 John 4:20, John the Apostle writes that if we say that we love God but not the brethren, we make ourselves to be liars, and it doesn’t leave room for negotiations. God is clear that we must love one another to make it known to the world that we are God’s children (and ambassadors), so it’s an act of the will in the end.
When we choose to not love someone, our heart hardens because of the rebellion in our hearts towards God’s Word, based on conflicting emotions and harbored bitterness towards those who have wronged us, and every believer will go through this at some point; we just have to keep pressing forward and trusting in God to give us the ability to love others. When we know how easily the heart can harden (especially towards people), we will know how to proceed from that point.
Point 3: Hearts harden because of pride
Pharaoh in the book of Exodus serves as the perfect example of how pride can deceive you. Exodus 9:12 goes over the fact that Pharaoh would not free the Israelites from their bondage of slavery, and as time went on, instead of it just being Pharaoh hardening his heart, God ended up finishing the job for him; God gave Pharaoh chances to repent, but eventually He took the measure of hardening Pharaoh’s heart Himself (God is Sovereign, and Pharaoh got a dose of reality of who’s really in charge). God hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that He may be glorified in bringing His chosen people out of their bondage, and it can serve as a lesson for us; how easy it is to get distracted and let pride take over with us thinking that we accomplished everything on our own!
If we choose to let pride take hold of us, we deceive ourselves thinking that there aren’t consequences to it. Hebrews 3:13 mentions that we as believers should be encouraging one another daily so that we won’t be deceived by sin, and when we get deceived by sin we end up getting hardened in the process. Sin deceives us by giving us the idea that God isn’t seeing your willingness to engage with sinful practices, and that can be a form of arrogance, to believe that God (who is Omnipotent) isn’t able to see what’s taking place in your life.
Pride corrupts, and it is the biggest act of rebellion to God. People may say that God is arrogant because of misunderstanding the passages of Scripture and their hardness of heart, but God doesn’t need to be prideful because He is the Creator who made all things and is Holy with all credit and glory being due Him, whereas us finite beings who are mortal and fallible are susceptible to temptation and are in need of Jesus to give us His Holy Spirit to overcome the battles that come our way. Pride makes us believe that we don’t need a Savior, and that is the default state of fallen mankind, but God is evermore merciful and is more than willing to forgive you if you fall into pride or any other sin (remember how in Hebrews 4:15 it mentions how Jesus can relate to us by being tempted the same way we are, and the miraculous news is that He was tempted but didn’t sin, which is why we trust in Him to be our Savior, who is also our Advocate before God the Father).
Pride can be a quick way to harden our hearts depending on how much you let yourself become boastful, and it is tragic in the end. It’s understandable to say that pride can also come from a place of hurt, for that is a very common occurrence in today’s world; it makes us feel bitter at first towards those that have hurt us, and then we eventually get to the point of choosing to be self-reliant (not self-sufficient as an adult taking care of basic needs, but a place where we choose not to rely on God). Self-reliance is not what God has for us, because it can be a shaky foundation in living your life; God wants to be your firm foundation, where there is no shaky ground and deeply rooted. What say you?
Something to address
I wanted to share my thoughts on the necessity of being on guard against a hardened heart living in these times we’re living in. We’re living in an upside-down world where (as the Bible makes mention) good will be known as bad and vice versa. Apostasy is taking place at rapid levels in our churches and lone Christians with no Church gathering to be with; people are committing apostasy and they aren’t realizing it, but it can begin with a hardened heart.
The urgent warning I want to give is that if you get hurt by someone, if you have struggled with loving others, or if you slip into pride in some sense, I want to encourage you by saying that you aren’t alone in struggling with those things, but we don’t want to let those things overtake us. This present world is not going to get better, and with suffering being intensified it gets difficult to keep ourselves vigilant and follow God’s commands, and the solution (as I believe) is to keep a heart of gratitude that is praying for those around you, and not tear them down. It may seem pointless to be a light in this world, but we have an audience of One, who sees everything (even the secret things). Pray to God to give you a heart that is merciful and filled with grace, and continue to grow in Him, and as time goes on you will see changes happening in your life, positive changes and for the better.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me”. – Psalm 51:10 (ESV)
Through My Own Eyes: A Blog About Biblical Topics 
Leave a comment