Don’t Harden Your Heart Today

Hebrews 3:7 So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did. 10 That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.’ 11 So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.'”

As we continue to look at New Year Resolutions from the Book of Hebrews, today’s passage is calling us to look at today and a third resolution: Don’t harden your heart. Today.

It’s a good reminder that any day of the week
we can intentionally push out the voice of God
and follow the ways of the world. 
God hates that.

An online acquaintance made the statement that the same sun that melts wax can harden clay.  I’ve been thinking about that as it relates to this passage regarding God’s voice.  God’s voice is the same going out to all of us, just as it was the same for our ancestors.  God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  What was the difference between the ancestors with hardened hearts and those who inherited the Promised Land? What is the difference between clay and wax?  Is it not the nature of the substance?

The substance of the ancestors who died in the wilderness was rebellion, going astray, not knowing or accepting the ways of God.  It’s who they were. The ones who died (instead of inheriting) lived with ingratitude, second guessing, doubt, selfishness, greed, complacency, willingness to submit under evil in exchange for pleasures and comforts, and in every case, forsaking their God.  Their nature was clay.  Faithless.  Rebellious.

If it happened to them
even after seeing the miraculous deliverance
God gave them from Egypt, it could happen to us. 

Hebrews 3 continues, “12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

Questions for today:

Why is Today important?

If the greatest deliverance miracle of all, Jesus’ payment for our sins and offering us eternal life, is displayed for all of us as a Promised Land, what does rejection of Him look like to God, His Father? 

What was God’s reaction to those with hardened hearts in the wilderness?

Are you one of those who believes the “New Testament God” doesn’t get angry?  What does Scripture say about Jesus’ return? 

Read Revelation 19: 11 I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice He judges and wages war. 12 His eyes are like blazing fire, and on His head are many crowns. He has a name written on Him that no one knows but He Himself. 13 He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and His name is the Word of God. 14 The armies of heaven were following Him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. 15 Coming out of His mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. 16 On His robe and on His thigh, He has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.