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Study #47: What We Consider is What We Get 

"By grace you have been saved through faith...it is the gift of God, not as a result of works..." - Ephesians 2:8-9 
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 Dr. Bill Miller                                 Volume XIX Number 31                                July 31, 2016 
     

Greetings in the Name of Jesus and welcome to the PLN Sunday Night Bible Fellowship!
 
We're still talking about HARDNESS OF HEART and last week we came to the observation that the Christian experience is all about RENEWAL of the MIND (Romans 12:2). We come into the Kingdom of God when we're born again with a newly revived and regenerated spirit that's been reconnected to God and that's totally REDEEMED and SANCTIFIED. But our MINDS haven't been redeemed yet and over a period of time they have to be brought out of the World's way of thinking and into Kingdom of God thinking that agrees with the wisdom of God. The wisdom of God can be found in His Word so it's the Word of God that RENEWS our MINDS and brings us under the authority of the Holy Spirit.
 
But as we've discussed, one of the main things that hinders that RENEWAL process is HARDNESS OF HEART and we looked at several examples in Scripture where it's mentioned and even where Jesus rebuked His own disciples for having HARDNESS OF HEART. For example, in Mark 8:17 Jesus tells them 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 past supernatural events.
 
How It Originates
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 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 God doesn't harden hearts anymore as He once did for example to Pharaoh's heart in the Old Testament. 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). The meaning of the Greek word translated HEART in many places in the New Testament means MIND or THINKING. So a HARDENED HEART means a hardening of one's THINKING AWAY from the things of God.
 
Therefore, HARDNESS OF HEART originates with us. It's our responsibility to recognize what it is and to take steps to resist it instead of just allowing it to just hang on. Otherwise why would Jesus have rebuked His disciples so strongly? He told them clearly and pointedly that they had control over their Hardness of Heart and that He thought they should have overcome it after seeing so many miracles and so many signs and wonders. All of that that should have changed their way of thinking. It should have RENEWED their minds to a more spiritual way of thinking.
 
What Are You Considering?
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 and perhaps as many as 15,000 other folks 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 mean that the disciples had failed to put enough mental attention on what Jesus had done in an effort to fully understand it. In my opinion, some of the 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 attention to. But the converse also works: whatever we do CONSIDER, whatever we do focus our attention on and whatever we do 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 begin to 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. Think about (consider) 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 participating in our discussions want God's victory and blessing in their lives. We can have it if we'll just take it. To take it we have to CONSIDER the Word of God at every opportunity. We can't just depend on what our Pastors and Ministers tell us what the Word says. They're wrong a lot of the time anyway just because they're just people and none of us has all the answers. No, we ALL have to CONSIDER the Word OURSELVES, on our own with the purpose in MIND of being changed, of using the power of the Word of God to bring change to our lives. CONSIDER that tonight and just see what happens!
 
Thanks for joining our discussion tonight. We'll be looking for you again NEXT Sunday night on August 7. In the meantime may the Lord bless you with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3), pushing you to VICTORY in every area of life!

Sinners' Prayer
If you've never invited Jesus to be your Lord, you can do so today by believing and saying out loud the following simple prayer:
 
Jesus, I declare today with all my heart that I believe in you and I believe that God raised you from the dead. I acknowledge that my sins have been forgiven for all time 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, God has already come into your life and you're 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.
 
When you get a moment have someone help you look up the following scriptures because they confirm what you've done by saying this prayer and believing what you said:
 
Romans 10:9
2 Corinthians 5:17
Ephesians 2:8
 
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