“Take care,
brothers and sisters, that there not be in any one of you a wicked, unbelieving
[a]heart [which refuses to trust and rely on the Lord, a heart] that turns away
from the living God. 13 But continually encourage one another every day, as
long as it is called “Today” [and there is an opportunity], so that none of you
will be hardened [into settled rebellion] by the deceitfulness of sin [its
cleverness, delusive glamour, and sophistication].”
Hebrews 3:12-13
Amplified Bible
You can grow in
love through doubts accompanied by a desire to believe but you will be
destroyed by a hardened heart accompanied by a refusal to believe.
The heading above
the two verses written for today in my bible says: “The Peril of Unbelief”.
It is indeed a
perilous and destructive thing to harden our hearts in unbelief.
We don’t risk the
moment, we risk eternity.
As we saw
previously, God will respond to the heart that doubts but desires to believe.
He cannot respond
to the heart that is hardened and refuses to believe.
They have made
their choice.
The choice of
words the Amplified version uses to describe the hardened heart are quite good.
They say “into
settled rebellion”.
It’s kind of like an
old chorus we used to sing turned upside down and spoken something like this:
My minds made up
My heart is fixed
I want nothing of Jesus – no way!
What a sad state
that is when what God has offered us is fellowship with Him throughout eternity
simply by believing on the work of His Son.
It sounds rather
foolish to harden your heart to such an offer but that is what the blinding
nature of sin combined with the strategies of the devil cause us to do; make
foolish decisions.
Don’t settle into
rebellion.
Instead, draw near
to God with a humble heart.
Stay close to
those who stay close to Him and even in your doubts may the desire to believe
remains strong!
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