Today’s reading: Hebrews 2-3
Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. You must warn each other every day, as long as it is called “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God (Hebrews 3:12-13)
In February 2016, the second month of our Bible Journal journey, we studied Exodus. At God’s direction Moses kept going to Pharaoh and asking him to release the Israelites from captivity. At every visit, Pharaoh was unyielding. His continued refusal brought God’s wrath on Egypt, ten increasingly worse plagues. Through the first five – blood, frogs, gnats, flies, and death of livestock – the Bible says Pharaoh hardened his heart and refused to set God’s people free. But in the account of the last five plagues – boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and dead of the firstborn – the Bible says God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.
I remember struggling with the thought of God intentionally hardening someone’s heart. As I was reading our text for today, the subject of hardening our hearts came up again in Hebrews 3. It prompted me to go back to 2016 and remind myself how I reconciled something that seemed inconsistent with the character of God.
To start, God is love. He desires that everyone be saved by putting their faith in Jesus Christ.
“For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God, so turn, and live (Ezekiel 18:32).
This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (I Timothy 2:3-4).
God, however, has also given us free will. Like Pharaoh, when we persist in our unbelief, God will eventually leave us alone in our sin. Sin, unless covered by the blood of Jesus, will lead to eternal separation from God. See, God doesn’t choose to separate us from him by hardening our hearts. Rather, we choose it for ourselves. If we keep choosing sin instead of accepting Jesus, he will eventually leave us alone. Very scary.
I am human. My sinful nature leads me make selfish choices that are outside of God’s plan for my life. But how do I prevent a consistent unbelieving heart that will lead God to check on out me? I must choose to “stay the course” even when I don’t feel like it. If I continue to have fellowship with other believers, regularly talk about my faith, maintain awareness of sin’s deceitfulness, care for others, and encourage them with genuine love and concern, I won’t be prone to chose unbelief.
For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ (Hebrews3:14).