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

We're still talking about HARDNESS OF HEART and one of the main observations we've already come to is that the Christian experience is supposed to be about the RENEWAL of a Believer's MIND (Romans 12:2). When we each come into the Kingdom of God, we immediately receive a newly revived and regenerated SPIRIT part of us that's been connected directly to God (I Corinthians 3:16, 6:19, Romans 8:9). In other words, that SPIRIT part of us has been totally REBORN, it has become a new creation and has ALREADY been totally and completely RENEWED (2 Corinthians 5:17). The Bible says that instantaneously we come out of the domain (the authority and control) of darkness and into the Kingdom of Christ. But the MIND part of us still requires RENEWAL (Ephesians 4:23) and that renewal is supposed to come about by an ongoing process of "washing" it with the Word of God (Ephesians 5:26). And one of the major HINDRANCES in the fulfillment of that process is a spiritual condition that Jesus called "hardness" or "dullness" of HEART (Mark 8:17, Matthew 13:15, 19:8, Mark 10:5).

Before going any farther in this series, we need to all be understanding together the related biblical terms because there's a history of confusion on this subject that the enemy is all too happy to keep going. And so, I have provided in the next section some clarifications that will help our understanding. Some folks may not be familiar with some of them because they don' fully match up with traditional teaching that wasn't all that well understood anyway. But don't get "hung up" on tradition (Mark 7:13) just when MIND RENEWAL is trying to make an inroad: at least CONSIDER the possibility that there could be more insightful ways of looking at things than perhaps you've previously thought about and then by all means come to your own conclusions.

Some Key Clarifications

The FIRST clarification is to understand what the MIND is because many people interchange that word with the physical organ in our bodies called the "brain." The world uses them almost interchangeably but the biblical meaning is entirely distinctive. In Scripture the MIND is not a physical thing; rather, it's our "thinking," the body of our individualized "thoughts" on the vast array of subjects we've been exposed to. It includes our opinions, our values and our beliefs and no one else in the universe has a MIND that looks and works exactly like yours. It's a non-physical part of you that the Word of God says needs to changed, RENEWED from the condition it was in when you came into the Kingdom of God into a MIND that AGREES in every respect with His WORD and harkens to His commandments.

The SECOND clarification is to understand what the word HEART means. Some folks try to equate or attach it to the word "spirit." I have myself heard it taught that you can use the words "heart" and "spirit" interchangeably. But a deeper study has brought me to a different conclusion. In both the Old and New Testaments and in both the Hebrew and the Greek, the original words translated into the English word HEART most of the time mean "thinking." Therefore, in Scripture the word HEART is closely related to the word MIND and is that individualized internal part of us where our thinking resides. Thus, when Jesus used the term "hardness" or "dullness" of HEART, He was talking about the hardness or dullness of the THINKING of the people He was talking to which rendered them incapable of PERCEIVING the Word (Matthew 13:14-15).

The THIRD clarification is that the New Testament "confirms" for us that we are three-part beings. Those three parts are identified in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 as spirit, soul and body. We are "spirit" beings, we have a soul or inner PERSON that embodies all our THINKING and we presently live in a body. The confusion starts with not understanding that the "spirit" and the "soul" are TWO distinctive parts of us; they are NOT the same part. Indeed, Scripture says that the WORD of God comes into the life of the Believer to DIVIDE the spirit and the soul (Hebrews 4:12). Let's see why that's important.

When Adam disobeyed God, he "died" just as he'd been warned (Genesis 2:17). But the Hebrew word there isn't referring to a physical death; it means SEPARATION. In other words the spirit of Adam became SEPARATED from direct spirit-to-Spirit fellowship with God and the Bible says in multiple places (e.g. Romans 5:12) that thereafter at birth we ALL inherited Adam's nature which is CONTROLLED by sin (Colossians 1:13) and SEPARATED from the Spirit of God. In other words, until we can be born again (John 3:3), that spirit part of us is DEAD to the things of God and is incapable of influencing the other parts of us on His behalf. Since we can ONLY be born again by the SEED of the Word (1 Peter 1:23) and since God is spirit (John 4:24), the Word has to come and separate our spirit part away from the influence of the rest of us so that we can be rejoined in fellowship with God on a spirit-to Spirit level and receive teaching from the Holy Spirit (John 14:26). That leaves the SOUL and the BODY parts of us that have to still be dealt with through a RENEWAL process.

The FOURTH clarification is that each person God has ever created is UNIQUE. Some of our distinctive and unique characteristics are INTERNAL and non-physical while others are expressed EXTERNALLY by our physical bodies. Because He is spirit (John 4:24), God is concerned with the INTERNAL part of us instead of the external physical part (1 Samuel 16:6-7) and it's that INTERNAL part that He wants to TRANSFORM into the image of Christ (Romans 8:29) by the RENEWING of the MIND (Romans 12:2). Therefore, by process of elimination it's the SOUL part of us that's the object of the Holy Spirit's attention because that SOUL part is the embodiment of all the INTERNAL non-physical characteristics that are unique and personal to each individual. They are the characteristics that DEFINE who we truly are as individuals which is why they have to be RENEWED.

In sum, the HARDNESS OF HEART Jesus spoke about is a DULLNESS in our MINDS, in our way of THINKING about the Word and the Kingdom of God. It's a slowness or plodding inability to UNDERSTAND the supernatural things of God which Jesus called lack of PERCEPTION. And all of that resides in the INTERNAL part of us we call the SOUL where God wants to carry out a total reclamation project.

How It Originates

In Mark 8:17 Jesus told His disciples that their hearts were hardened because they had failed to PERCEIVE the spiritual significance of His miracle of feeding the 4,000. And as He REBUKED them, He mentioned the various ways HARDNESS OF HEART manifests in the lives of Believers (Mark 8:17-21):

> 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 either past supernatural events or IMPARTATIONS from the Holy Spirit.

The truth is then, HARDNESS OF HEART affects almost everybody in the Body of Christ, some more than others. Much of what we came into the Kingdom with still clings to us and many of us have also acquired new kinds of HARDNESS OF HEART from our surroundings in the Church. So, we aren't as sensitive as we should be to the supernatural, to the spiritual and to the things of God. We're way too quick to evaluate everything by just our five physical senses. And we don't approach the Word of God with the purpose in MIND of being renewed, or being changed by releasing our Faith over what we've had illuminated for us from the Word. The result is:

> It makes what we learn not productive for us.

> The facts we do happen to remember don't influence our behavior.

Therefore, it's we who're hardening our own hearts. Satan can't do it to us unless we allow him to, and I don't believe God hardens hearts anymore as He once did or why would Jesus have been so tough on folks including His own disciples? But if we let Satan deceive us into SIN or if we resist moving away from our UNBELIEF in any area of life, if we let tradition lead us instead of the Word, if we stay too close to the World systems, the result is always a hardening of the heart (Hebrews 3:7-13).

So HARDNESS OF HEART originates with us. It's our responsibility to recognize what it is and to take steps to resist it instead of allowing it to just lay there festering and growing stronger and stronger. And again, why would Jesus have rebuked His disciples so strongly if they hadn't had the ability to deal with it? He told them clearly and pointedly that they had control over it and that He thought they should have overcome it after seeing so many miracles, so many signs and wonders He had performed that should have changed their way of thinking.

What We Consider is What We Get

The good news about HARDNESS OF HEART is that it's reversible. We don't have to let it go on hindering our blessings and victories. We can definitely become more sensitive to the things of God; we just need to know where to start. And to do that we can look to a previous occasion after Jesus had performed the miracle of the five loaves and two fishes when 5,000 men were fed (Mark 6:33-44). Later that same day Jesus walked on the water during a storm and the Bible says the disciples were "astonished" to see Him doing that "for they CONSIDERED not the miracle of the loaves; for their heart was hardened" (Mark 6:52 KJV).

The Greek words in this scripture means that the disciples had failed to put their mental attention to what Jesus had done in an effort to understand it. In my opinion some of the other translations don't quite catch this meaning but the King James Version conveys the idea that we must CONSIDER the things of God, that we have to give attention to them and think about and meditate on them in an EFFORT to understand the spiritual significance. If we don't CONSIDER these things, then they pretty much just pass right over our heads and we fail to be CHANGED by the things of God we encounter on a regular basis.

What this teaches us is that we'll become HARDENED to the things we fail to CONSIDER. Another way to say this is that we'll become HARDENED to the things we don't give enough attention to. But the converse also works: whatever we DO CONSIDER, whatever we DO focus our attention on and make an effort to understand will grow and soon dominate us. We become sensitive to the things of God by focusing our attention on them. If we'll stop focusing on the World with its problems and customs and false promises and move our attention over to the Lord and His Word and His Kingdom, that HARDNESS OF HEART to the things of God so many of us suffer from will soon dissipate and we'll come to understand what the Holy Spirit is trying to teach us so the RENEWAL of our MINDS can start to make a difference. Focus on your problems all the time and get the World with its false promises; or, consider the Word of God and get the Kingdom of God with its true promises.

I know that most people who're reading these articles want God's victory and blessing in their lives. You can have it if you'll just TAKE it. To TAKE it you have CONSIDER the Word of God at every opportunity. You can't just depend on what your Pastors and Ministers or this Newsletter tell you that the Word says. We're wrong a lot of the time. No, we ALL have to CONSIDER the Word ourselves with the purpose in MIND of being changed, with the purpose in mind of using the power of the Word of God to bring change to our lives. CONSIDER that today and see what happens!

Thanks for joining our discussion tonight. We'll be looking for you again NEXT Sunday night on March 15. 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.

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Donations

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