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 THE WORD IS YOUR SOURCE OF POWER      
               Understanding Your Hardness of Heart                    
     
Thanks be to God who gives us the VICTORY through Christ - 1 Corinthians 15:57 

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 By: Dr. Bill Miller                             Volume XVIII Number 9                                     March 1, 2015

Greetings in the Name of Jesus and welcome to the PLN Sunday Night Bible Fellowship!

  

Last week we started talking about HARDNESS OF HEART as it relates to spiritual PERCEPTION and I mentioned that all of us have Hardness of Heart to some degree. Don't forget the illustration that got us started: two Believers can be sitting in any given assembly on Sunday morning listening to the Pastor's teaching and one will come away with a rooted understanding of the message while the other just won't get the point. Both Believers received the teaching with their five physical senses and they both heard the entire message with their physical ears without being distracted. Maybe even both of them took notes. But only one of them actually PERCEIVED it and was changed by what was heard. Only one was listening with the purpose in MIND of being changed.

 

The Christian life is supposed to be about CHANGING one's SOUL. When we're born again and begin a new relationship with God, we come out of the World and into the Kingdom of God under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Where before, sin and the "wisdom" of men were our master, we give that up to come under the authority and TRUE wisdom of God through His Word by FAITH. When we're born again the spirit-man part of us is instantly REDEEMED and made perfect but our SOUL containing our mind, will, emotions and conscience must start a long journey eventually arriving at REDEMPTION. We're to cease being "conformed" to the World so we can be "transformed" by the renewing of our MINDS (Romans 12:2). Only the Word of God can renew our MINDS.

 

Jesus Defined It

 

In Mark 8:17 Jesus suggested to His disciples that they had developed hardened hearts because they had failed to PERCEIVE with their spiritual senses the significance of His miracle of feeding the 4,000 with just seven loaves of bread. As He rebuked them, He enumerated the ways that HARDNESS OF HEART had manifested in their lives (Mark 8:17-21) and we can assume they are manifesting in our lives in the same way:

 

> We fail to UNDERSTAND the Word.

> We can't see with our spiritual eyes.

> We can't hear with our spiritual ears.

> We don't REMEMBER supernatural events from the past.

 

All of these things are rampant in the Body of Christ and demonstrate the accuracy of our basic illustration where one out of the two example listeners in the assembly was not able to understand and retain the point of the teaching. Keep in mind that Jesus was NOT happy that ALL of His hand-picked, personally-trained disciples had either developed HARDNESS OF HEART since they had joined with Jesus or more likely had brought it with them and had failed to change for the better.

 

The Causes of It

 

Now the Bible says that the Israelites came out of Egypt with HARDNESS OF HEART (Hebrews 3:8). God performed miracle after supernatural miracle for them and they never got the point. Either they hadn't UNDERSTOOD what had happened or they FORGOT it. What they DID do was complain and resist God at every opportunity until in His wrath He decided to keep them in the wilderness for 40 years and keep most of them from going into the Promised Land. Following are the causes of HARDNESS OF HEART we can summarize from the discussion of the Israelites in Hebrews 3:7 through 4:11:

 

> Unbelief

> Deceitfulness of sin

> Disobedience

> Failure to unite the Word with Faith

> Failure to know the ways of God

> Ingratitude

> Fear and distrust

> Continuing in the ways of the World

 

In the weeks to come we'll talk more about these causes. The disciples of Jesus were guilty of some of these things and it caused them to suffer from HARDNESS OF HEART to the point that Jesus strongly rebuked them for it. Most of us in the Body of Christ are guilty of some of these things and we too suffer from this problem. Some Believers have more HARDNESS OF HEART than others, so hard in fact they backslide and go back into the World to live in their sin and doubt and unbelief. If we can spot these things in our own lives, we can start to overcome the condition that Jesus was so concerned about: HARDNESS OF HEART.

 

Why We Need to Overcome It

 

The principal thing that stands between where each of us is today and where we want to be, in total victory in every area of life spirit, soul and body, is the need for the RENEWING of our MINDS (Romans 12:2). Renewal ONLY comes by the Word of God, not just reading it, not even memorizing it but by UNDERSTANDING it and APPROPRIATING it in FAITH into our own lives. In my experience, I haven't just relied on the teaching of other people like my Pastors and elders even though they were very helpful. The reason is that the Holy Spirit is my Teacher (John 14:26) and it's by Him that I receive the illumination that RENEWS my MIND. That means I have to take what my Pastors have taught me and go to the Word MYSELF in personal study, meditation and prayer to get out of it the things that will make me sensitive to the wisdom of God instead of HARDENED to it. Then the Word can change me and RENEW me. I have to listen to my Pastors but study the Word myself with the PURPOSE in MIND of being changed by the POWER of the Word.

 

In short, HARDNESS OF HEART cuts us off from the RENEWAL that we need in order to produce victory in life, which is to say that it cuts us off from God's empowerment. This is something we need to deal with not only for our own good but so the Body of Christ can become what God intends for us to be. RENEWAL brings PERCEPTION which brings UNDERSTANDING which brings the POWER of the Word.

 

Thanks for joining our discussion tonight. We'll be looking for you again NEXT Sunday night on March 8. In the meantime may the Lord bless you with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3), compelling you to PROSPER in every area of life!

 

Sinners' Prayer

 

If you've never invited Jesus to be the Lord of your life, you need to and you can do it today just by saying out loud the following simple prayer:

 

Jesus I declare today with all my heart that I believe in you and that God raised you from the dead. I acknowledge that my sins have been forgiven and I ask you to come into my life today and be my Lord and Savior. Thank you for salvation and eternal life.

 

If you were sincere as you prayed this prayer, God has already come into your life and you are a new creation, a totally new species recreated in His image. Now ask the Lord to lead you to a good faith-based, bible-teaching church where you can be equipped to fulfill your potential in the Kingdom of God.

 

And, when you get a chance have someone help you look up the following scriptures because they confirm what you've done by saying this prayer today and believing what you said:

 

Romans 10:9

2 Corinthians 5:17

Ephesians 2:8

 

Prayer Requests

 

If you have a Prayer Request, please connect to the Link below and follow the promptings. The PLN staff members pray over Prayer Requests every Tuesday morning at 10:00 AM eastern time. Agree with us for God to answer your petition.

 

http://www.creditcounseling.net/prayer-request.aspx 

 

Donations

 

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http://www.creditcounseling.net/shop/item.aspx?itemid=1 

 

About Prosperous Life Newsletter

 

PLN is an outreach ministry of Make A Way Ministries and has been published continuously since January 1998. It's an e-publication about life in the Kingdom of God and is sent ONLY to our email list of MINISTRY MEMBERS. If you're reading this and aren't yet on our growing email list, please let us know and we'll be so very happy to add you to the list.

 

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