Don't Harden Your Heart
Blessed is the man who always fears the Lord, but he who hardens his heart falls into trouble. Proverbs 28:14The Scriptures so often admonish us to the fear of the Lord that our sensitivity is often dulled by the multiplicity of references: "Yea, yea, I know, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."
To always fear the Lord is to maintain a sensitive heart. To neglect a consistent state of the fear of the Lord is to harden one's own heart. This reveals a basic principle: we harden our hearts by a lack of consideration. We create insensitivity by forsaking a God-centered mindset: "You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you" (Is. 26:3).
The peace of God abides with those who are single-minded. This places a tremendous power within ourselves. If we are to always fear the Lord, it will require that we are always single-minded, or mindful, of God's presence and scrutiny in our lives. If we fail to be single-minded, we are hardening our hearts. Like the hardening of our arteries leads inevitably to a heart attack, so "he who hardens his heart falls into trouble."
The trouble comes because we move recklessly through life. Our hardened hearts make us obstinate to wisdom, i.e. the skillful living of the godly. However, the hardening of our hearts is compartmentalized: we may grow insensitive to the fear of the Lord, but we remain sensitive to the temptation of sin. We are never completely hardened.
Again, this places a significant power within our minds. By hardening our hearts towards God, we are sensitized to temptation. By hardening our hearts to temptation, we are sensitized to the fear of the Lord. This was the lesson of Abraham and Sarah after leaving Haran for God's promised land:
If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Heb. 11:15The Father of Faith would have found "opportunity" to return to Haran had he occupied himself with his homeland: "Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one" (v.16). Abraham and Sarah had hardened their own hearts toward any temptation to return to Haran. They were single-minded upon the promise God had given them, and the only opportunities they saw were those that led to Canaan.
The man that hardens his heart to the fear of the Lord will fall into trouble. The man who fears the Lord will see the blessing of God upon his life. The power to avoid one while increasing in the other is within our minds and what we choose to consider. This is godly pietism. The man who is sensitive to the fear of the Lord seeks to expand that awareness of God into every sphere. Devotion should always lead to application, and the starting point for devotion is the constant awareness of your ever-present Lord.
