“So, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.’” (Heb. 3:8)
I think we all go through seasons of hearing God more or less clearly. Hearing God’s voice is an integral part of being led by the Spirit and being led by the Spirit is essential to a relationship with Jesus. Paul wrote, “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Rom.8:12-14). The corollary to that statement is those who are not led by the Spirit are not sons of God. If those things are true then we must guard our hearts against the condition of hardening. The hardening of a heart is dependent on our responses to the voice of God as he speaks to us day after day. He speaks in many ways and we want to stay alert and submitted to his voice when he presents himself to us. Two primary things can cause us to push back on God’s voice or ignore it all together: sin and woundedness.
The most obvious is unrepented sin. Because God is committed to making us into the image of his Son, his Holy Spirit will push us toward repentance whenever sin begins to take root. Paul warns us, “Do not put out the Spirit’s fire” (1 Thess. 5:19). It is possible to quench the fire and influence of the Spirit in our life. Indifference towards the Kingdom and indifference towards sin can harden our hearts so that we no longer feel the promptings or the leading of the Spirit. The Bible speaks of calloused hearts that no longer respond to God. It is the idea of skin becoming so thick that it loses its sensitivity to those things that prick or rub against it. Our hearts can lose their sensitivity to the Spirit and to the voice of God as well.
Scripture declares in another place, “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tastedthe heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace” (Heb. 6:4-6). The writer of Hebrews is issuing a practical warning for every believer.
He is not saying that God will no longer forgive but, in essence, we are told that we can resist the Spirit of God long enough that we will lose our capacity to repent. Our hearts may become so calloused and hard, that even the promptings of the Spirit will no longer touch us. By our own choices, we can develop a kind of spiritual neuropathy so that we can become numb and oblivious to the pricks of our conscience and the voice of the Father. When we nurture sin, we must push back on the promptings of the Spirit and, as we do, we lose sensitivity to his leading, Hardened hearts do not make good receivers for hearing the voice of God.
Although sin heavily contributes to hardening, emotional scars may also hinder our hearing. Many of us have been deeply wounded by life. As a result, we have developed extensive defense mechanisms to guard ourselves from being wounded again. We become emotionally guarded and distrustful. We are rarely open and vulnerable even with those closest to us. We still keep our deepest fears, hopes, and feelings to ourselves because fear rejection. We work hard to stay in control of every situation in order to feel safe. We may even succumb to the temptation to lie and manipulate to avoid blame or rejection of any kind.
When wounded, we may view God with the same suspicion and distrust. We are not open with him. We offer partial confessions and tend to be inauthentic before the Father. We shy away from being honest about our fears, our unbelief, our lust, our bitterness and so forth. We may fear his rejection and correction so we don’t truly want to hear his voice. As we anticipate rejection from others, we may anticipate it from him as well so we keep our distance and have little faith that he will say “yes” to our prayers.
If your heart has been hardened by life so that you are guarded, distrustful or controlling, ask God to dissolve those strongholds and give you a softened and responsive heart to his love and his Word. If you are choosing sin over a relationship with him, then repent. God is aware of your brokenness and your fear and is willing to heal those hurts. He is aware of your sins and eagerly forgives when we sincerely seek his forgiveness. Remember, time is your enemy. As we resist the voice of God for whatever reason, our hearts are becoming hard. That is why the Spirit pleads, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts’” (Heb. 3:8)
Blessings in Him.