How Do You Guard Against a Hard Heart?
For Christians, the dangers of a hard heart are always looming. This will always be a struggle until we reach our glory with Christ. Hebrews 3:8 warns Christians to guard against their hearts being hardened in sin like the Israelites in the wilderness. Dangers are ever-present and ever-at-work! It may be helpful, then, to consider what hard-heartedness is. Briefly, it is when the heart remains unmoved and unaffected to the word and work of God and his commands. It is the habitual power and affect of sin against God. Since a hard heart actively works against us, we should actively guard against it. Scripture gives us numerous directions as to guarding against it. Here are just a few:
Remember the majesty and holiness of the presence of God. Our Creator God, whom angels worship, who controls nature, whose presence is like fire, is the one to whom we must give an account (Hebrews 4:13). Nothing should grab our attention like the awesome wonder of God and his holiness. J. I. Packer wrote, “We will not talk sleepily or contemptuously to a king; how much less should we before the God of heaven.” Job 9:4 describes the wonder of God’s majesty and warns against the hard-hearted, “He is wise in heart and mighty in strength, who has hardened himself against him, and succeeded?”
Consider the joylessness of a hard-heart. When king David was hardened in sin, he described himself in Psalm 32 in woeful conditions: “My bones wasted away, through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.” When Jesus is the joy of man’s desiring, no wonder there is much turmoil in a heart that is hard.
Remember the Gospel. God’s redeeming love and kindness to sinners has such power to melt the cold heart. Richard Baxter writes, “If God’s love, so great and wonderful, will not soften thy heart, what will?” Consider the hymn Hallelujah, What a Savior and rejoice in God’s saving work in the Gospel:
“Man of Sorrows!” what a name
For the Son of God, who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned He stood;
Sealed my pardon with His blood.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Guilty, vile, and helpless we;
Spotless Lamb of God was He;
“Full atonement!” can it be?
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
John Starke is on staff at the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood in Louisville, KY. He and his wife Jena have three children. He also blogs at John Ploughman.
