HARD
HEART

MANY people smoke day after day, month after month, year after year and all of a sudden their ability to breathe is impacted and the lungs become hard. A lung is supposed to be soft and pliable but when a person smokes like that, their lungs become hard and the air can’t penetrate them.

You can read the Bible until you are blue in the face, but if it is being read by a hard heart, the Spirit won’t penetrate it.445

[Bible, Use of; Spiritual Maturity, Growth]

1 Sam. 6:6; Prov. 28:14; Matt. 13:15

SOME people go to the podiatrist because they need him to cut off a callous where their skin has gotten really hard. It’s not that they don’t still have soft skin; it’s just that it’s been covered over for so long, they can’t feel it anymore.

When you and I have gone an extended time away from God, a callous can grow, so that you don’t feel the desire to be close to God. It’s not that the desire isn’t there. A new nature exists for Christians and the new nature always is feeling God. The reason a person might not feel the desire is because they are calloused. Their heart has become hard, many times due to ungratefulness and discontent.446

[Ungratefulness]

Isa. 29:13; Mark 7:6