THE CASE FOR BEING SOFT AND HARD
HEBREWS 3:12-15 NKJV
12 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; 13 but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, 15 while it is said:
“Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
For all the men who stopped listening at the title, come back! Let me explain.
Remember, the Book of Hebrews was written to Jews under pressure. They were facing persecution from their Jewish community that was opposed to Jesus and Christianity. The pressure being exerted on them was to coerce them into renouncing Jesus and going back under Jewish law. So, in the face of this pressure, the title of our devotional does not make sense. When facing adversity, we need to be hard, not soft, right?
Yes and no. We need to be hard in our resolve and belief that we are staying with Jesus and what His word speaks to us. But we also need to be soft. Soft in our hearts toward God is the application here.
The writer of Hebrews warns the believers to not harden their hearts when they hear God's voice. The nation of Israel, when they came out of Egypt, hardened their hearts in the wilderness. They saw God's amazing power and miracles but still hardened their hearts and rebelled against Him. So the writer of Hebrews, writing to Jews who knew the Old Testament, was encouraging these believers not to harden their hearts against God.
So we hear him say to not have an evil heart of unbelief in leaving the living God. They had started believing, so don’t back up now. The believers are encouraged to encourage each other daily so they do not become hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
Sin, which is defined as violating what we know to be right in God's sight, can do a couple of things to us, and neither is good. Sin can harden us so that we are no longer sensitive to the promptings of our heart. And sin hardens our heart so that we have a harder time hearing from and responding to the leadings of the Holy Spirit.
So, the remedy for keeping us on track is to stay tender in our hearts toward God. Hard toward sin, tender toward God. And we stay with what we believe. The Hebrews' author called it holding the beginning of our confidence steadfast, steady, to the end. These Jewish believers had started on a path with the Lord, and they were to stay on that path with Jesus.
APPLICATION
As always, the scriptures, which are thousands of years old, are still applicable today. We still have to stay soft and tender in our hearts toward God in order to hear His voice and obey Him. We have to make the choice to stay with our relationship with the Lord. We hold onto our confidence in what we believe and who we believe. And we stay hard on our walk of faith with the Lord. Hard in our resolve to not depart from God. Being a believer is about being soft and hard.
PRAYER
Lord, I purpose to be soft-hearted toward You and Your word in my life. I do not want to be hard-hearted and hard of hearing. But I do want to be hardened in my resolve to live for You.