Softening of a Hardened Heart: God’s Promise of Hope

The Subtle Danger of a Hardened Heart

It's easy these days to become desensitized to suffering and pain. We see it everywhere. In the past, when bad things happened, we only knew about our local area but now we see suffering all over the world, almost as it happens. In Deuteronomy 15:7-8, we are reminded not to harden our hearts against the poor.

Do you have compassion? If you don't you might check your heart for hardness. Yet, Scripture offers hope: God promises to transform even the hardest hearts, replacing stone with flesh through His Spirit, as we’ll see in His Word.

We can become desensitized to sin as well. Our hearts get hardened to sin. We see people on YouTube or TikTok doing and saying things that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago, but now we barely raise an eyebrow.

How Sin Gradually Hardens Us

In our lives it is easy to see the same pattern. What starts out as a small sin grows and becomes almost commonplace, until we no longer see it for what it is. The Bible has a name for this: hardening your heart. It's as if your heart no longer wants to feel the experience of those suffering or no longer wants to experience the guilt that it should when you do things you know are wrong.

Biblical Warnings About Spiritual Hardness

A hard heart resembles a stone. It is difficult to move it. The things that happen to a hardened heart don't really cause a reaction. It's as though it has seen so much it has forgotten how to feel, when it is presented with truth, it rejects it. Remember, a heart of stone is heart that can never please God or do His will. Scripture teaches about the softening of a hardened heart, a transformation God works in us through His Spirit. In Ezekiel, the prophet has a word from God that says,

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26).

God speaks this promise to His people, the promise of a New Covenant. This New Covenant will change hearts because God Himself in the Holy Spirit will literally come and dwell in man. No man can have that happen and stay the same. In this way, men will desire to be obedient to the will of God.

There were hints in the Old Testament that this would happen. When Samuel anoints Saul King of Israel we are told in 1 Samuel 10:9 that God gave Saul a new heart which allowed him to become the king he needed to be. This new heart foreshadows the New Covenant heart promised by Ezekiel.

Only God can transform the heart. This transformation happens through the work of the Holy Spirit, which softens even the hardest hearts. We can't change our own heart. We can't just decide by sheer will power to become a new creation. But when the Holy Spirit enters our heart, then much like the Grinch in the children's Christmas story, our hearts will grow with love. This transformation is critical. As Scripture warns, a hardened heart not only dulls our sensitivity to sin but also resists God’s truth and grace.

How does God accomplish the softening of a hardened heart? When we are transformed we don't become perfect beings, however now we have the ability to please our Father, but only because of Him. We go from sin dominated, to Christ dominated. We go from slaves to sin to slaves to Christ. Gradually we become transformed into the image of Jesus. Before Christ, we lived under the domination of Satan, but now God is in control of our heart.

The Consequences of Ignoring God

Paul tells us that God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance (Romans 2:4-5). But when His kindness and grace is met with a hard heart He is rejected. Our pride and thanklessness comes from a heart that no longer feels anything except sin. It has become so fooled by sin as to believe that that is where happiness will be found. The hard heart doesn't realize the doom and destruction that is coming upon it.

Zechariah 7:12 reminds us of this when it says "they made their hearts diamond hard." Why? So they could not hear and respond to the Word of the Lord. They don't want to feel or hear because if they did, they would change. This rejection of God’s voice is vividly illustrated in the Gospels, where even those closest to Jesus struggled with hardened hearts despite witnessing His miracles.

Hardened Hearts in the Gospels

Have you seen miracles, things you can't explain, blessings you didn't ask for and just for a moment wondered if it was God? When these things happen some will be filled with faith and their hearts will be softened. Others will reject God and chalk the experience up to chance or good luck, anything but God. They will remain hardened, rejecting the truth right in front of their eyes.

In Mark 6, we read two of the most amazing miracles in the New Testament: the feeding of the five thousand and Jesus walking on the water. The disciples saw Jesus walking on the water they were "amazed beyond measure." Why? Verse 52 answers the question, "For they had not understood about the loaves, because their heart was hardened."

In spite of what they had seen, they didn't fully understand the power and authority of Jesus. They had seen a miracle but when Jesus came walking on the water they were fearful, thinking He was a ghost. The truth was in front of them but they failed to recognize it.

In Mark 8:17 Jesus asks, "Is your heart still hardened?" And then He says,

"Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember? "(Mark 8:18)

The disciples had the ability to see, hear, and remember what great miracles Jesus had done but still they persisted in doubt. The natural mind struggles to understand the things of the spirit. Aren't we the same? We see God work on a daily basis, we see His creation, we read and hear His Word, but we forget.

We don't remember the great things He has done. We are like the Israelites who crossed into the Promised Land and forgot the parting of the Red Sea and their miraculous escape from 400 years of slavery. To avoid falling into the same trap as the disciples or the Israelites, Scripture urges us to rely on the support of a faithful community to keep our hearts soft and responsive.

Guarding Our Hearts Through Community

As a believer, how do we keep our hearts from becoming hard and unresponsive? Hebrews 3:13 tells us to surround ourselves with believers who will prevent that from happening by exhorting us. Someone who exhorts is someone who encourages others to do right, to live a righteous life, to struggle against evil when it seems the fight is never ending. Guarding your heart takes community.

Are you surrounded with encouragers? Do you listen when people remind you of the blessings we gain when we are obedient children to our Father? Do we remind others of their blessings? Do we encourage others to seek peace with each other and do good? We can work together as a community to help the poor, putting a face on our faith.

The Devil’s Lies and God’s Revival

The Devil lies and casts doubt on God. This is and always has been his major tactic. "Did God really say that ?" he asked Eve. He casts doubt on truth. He whispers, "God doesn't really love you." He laughs and says, "One time won't hurt." Or "No one will ever know." And the more we succumb to those lies the harder our heart becomes.

Does that mean we are beyond hope? No, absolutely not. We can say with the Psalmist,

"Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?" (Psalm 85:6).

This revival begins when we turn back to our first love for God, as Jesus Himself calls us to do, urging us to reject the Devil’s lies and recommit to Him.

Have we become bored with Jesus or are we desperate for Jesus? Jesus warns the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2:4-5 this way,

"But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the works you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent".

John has already told us in 1 John 5:3 that if we love God we will keep his commandments. The Ephesians need to remember the One they love (God) because obedience flows from it. Their softened hearts will want to obey God. Maybe you have felt this way? Do you remember a time when you loved God more than you do now?

This new living, loving heart is not just a prize we win to make ourselves feel good. It is ours to share with the world. This heart of flesh is to give away as Christ gave Himself for us. Christianity isn't something to keep for oneself just to go to Heaven, it is to change the world for Christ.

Returning to Our First Love

If you have fallen, and your heart is growing hard, do as Jesus says, "Remember from where you have fallen" and repent, do the works, you once did. Don't give into the lies of the Devil. Don't let the world blind you to your Savior. Don't abandon your first love. Establish your heart in Jesus (James 5:8).

Softening of a Hardened Heart

And for those who never have had anything but a hard heart, there is still time to seek Him. Call out to Him and He will answer. He will give you a new heart. With this heart you will be able to experience love like you have never known. You will become part of a new family - the family of God. Christians through the centuries have expressed this same longing, often in hymns.

This ancient hymn by Robert Robinson (1758) is called, "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." The third verse follows:

O to grace how great a debtor

daily I’m constrained to be!

Let that grace now, like a fetter,

bind my wandering heart to thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

prone to leave the God I love;

here’s my heart; O take and seal it;

seal it for thy courts above.

Pray with me!

Dear Father,

We pray that our hard and wandering heart would forever be sealed for you by the Holy Spirit who turns stone into flesh and death into life.

In your Son Jesus' name,

Amen.