It starts in the Heart

The book of Hebrews, I’m reading it and Chapter 3 verse 7 to 19 says so much about the heart. I have been worried that I have drifted. Falling more times than I am happy to remember, I couldn’t imagine that God will still help me. Then I see this passage-

⁷ Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, ⁸ Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: ⁹ When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. ¹⁰ Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. ¹¹ So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.) ¹² Take heed, 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 To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. ¹⁴ For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; ¹⁵ While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. ¹⁶ For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. ¹⁷ But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? ¹⁸ And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? ¹⁹ So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

I have been asked not to harden my heart. I have been. I realise. I didn’t just start to fall or fail the day I fell or failed, it was a gradual process. I didn’t just fall out with God, lose Him or backslide, it had been happening in my heart. In the little things I decided to do or not to do. In the times I said ‘No, Lord’ where I should have said ‘Yes’. In the times I felt He was a burden. In every step I took and had to say ‘God will understand’. In every time I tried to justify myself. Every single day I fell away and while the glory did not depart immediately or at once, the heart definitely hardened. Gradually I got to the point where anger towards God was the norm and everything else had to make me angry. In the heart- In the heart is where it all began…

Verse 12 talks about taking heed… lest there be any evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. Unbelief, doubting God is of an evil heart. I looked away from God. I took the bull by the horns and delivered myself. But where was it that I read that you can deliver yourself out of your problem but you cannot deliver yourself into God’s will. I lost God. I fell away. I had an evil heart.

To everyone I looked alright. Except for when I couldn’t hide it anymore or the state of my heart seeped through, I was pleasant and all smiles. Adorable really, and had loads of friends but I was dying inside and it reflected in my mess of a life- nothing seemed to work out in certain areas and soon even the areas I thought I had it okay were soon lost.

I was certainly hardened through my sin (Verse 13). I didn’t want to hear of God anymore. Prayer was a chore I could barely do. It would follow that God did grieve and in a way my carcasses did fall in the wilderness in the state of defeat I had condemned myself to by my choice to figure things out on my own. My heart DID harden.

And in the heart it will begin… again. This time to resurrect. This time to heal. This time to love God like never before. Verse 18 says that it is those who did not believe that did not enter into God’s rest. It follows that if I do believe (now) I would enter into God’s rest (Just like if they had believed then they would have entered into God’s rest).

I did not die for a reason. God preserved me. Not unto defeat or powerlessness and definitely not unto loss or for loss. I will believe now. Faithful is He that has promised. (Hebrews 10:23) Verse 19 says they could not enter into God’s rest for unbelief. It means if I believe I would enter His rest. I am not dead, so it is not over. I am not dead so I can rewrite the story of my generation. I am not dead so I can still say this is not how the story ends. I am not dead because God has given me a second (okay, another) chance. (Romans 2:4). I will not die but live to declare the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. (Psalm 27:13). I am not giving up. The bible says the righteous falls down seven times and rises up again. (Proverbs 24:16)

So, I will believe… because victory and defeat start in the heart… Belief leads to Victory. Unbelief leads to defeat. I choose victory. And it starts in the heart.