Monday, July 27, 2026

        In the Old Testament, Israel often suffered from a hardened heart—a heart of stone that was set against God and His ways.  Though we read about this spiritual malady in the Old Testament, it is not a condition that was unique only to Israel.  People can often harden their hearts against God today.  It still happens in 2026.  Hebrews 4:7 says, “Today if you hear His voice do not harden your hearts.”  That warning stands because we can still strike such a posture against God and the work He may seek to do in us.  The heart is often used in the Bible as a symbol of one’s spiritual condition or as indicative of where one stands with respect to God.  According to Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”  Today, the heart can be receptive to God or dismissive toward Him.  Is your heart open to what God may wish to teach you or make known to you?  We can often find ourselves open to the blessings that God has for us but not necessarily the corrections, discipline and rebukes that God may bring to us.  God is a gracious and good Father and He often has to discipline us for our good and to correct wayward behavior.
         But God consistently works in our hearts for our good and for His glory.  God works to make us more like Jesus.  That work can be hard.  Often, God has to break us before He can remake and rebuild us.  Isaiah 40 is a passage that we often read around the time of Advent because it seems to speak about the coming of John the Baptist as the forerunner of Jesus.  And indeed, John did his job well to prepare Israel for its Messiah.  John’s role was to call Israel to repentance and to trade their rough, hardened and calloused hearts for the new work of grace that God had in mind for them.  Isaiah says, “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain” (Isaiah 40:3-4).  
         These words from Isaiah show us that God works to tame the wilderness in our hearts and the wild fruit that is growing. He comes to make straight all the ways within us that are crooked and bent.  He comes to straighten out a character that has gone rogue and gone wrong.  He comes to raise up the low places that have harbored sin and rebellion.  He comes to lower or tear down the hills and mountains of pride and self-importance that we have allowed to grow within us.  He comes to humble the proud places that we have raised up in opposition to Him.  He comes to sand away the rough edges of our hearts, minds and character.  He comes to make smooth all the places scarred and marked by sin and rebellion.
         God can change the places we have neglected, overlooked and held on to in stubbornness and sin.  Occasionally, a person is the recipient of a heart transplant.  The old heart has failed because of disease and sickness so a new heart is implanted to sustain the person’s life.  God can perform a spiritual heart transplant and bring life to dead places, hope to hopeless places and a new life to replace an old life that has been crippled by sin and rebellion.  God’s works within us are always for our good.  Those works may not always be easy or what we wish to see.  But He works to make us less like our sinful selves and more like His good, righteous and beloved Son Jesus.  When God is at work to change you and to bring something new and good, do not harden your heart, close your eyes or deafen your ears.  Let Him do His good works—even the hard ones.  Remember the Lord’s great invitation in Revelation 3:20, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”  Open the doors to your heart when God knocks.  Let God bring the change He has chosen for you.  Have a great Monday!