Episode Transcript
CONSECRATE
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
HEAR
Numbers 14:39–43 (NIV)
When Moses reported this to all the Israelites, they mourned bitterly. Early the next morning they set out for the highest point in the hill country, saying, “Now we are ready to go up to the land the LORD promised. Surely we have sinned!”
But Moses said, “Why are you disobeying the LORD’s command? This will not succeed! Do not go up, because the LORD is not with you. You will be defeated by your enemies, for the Amalekites and the Canaanites will face you there. Because you have turned away from the LORD, he will not be with you and you will fall by the sword.”
CONSIDER
It should not be lost on us that the whole context of our banner text—Hebrews 3:13—is the wilderness world of the people of God: “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”
Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief. (Heb. 3:16–19)
Here’s the encouragement to some of you today. Doors have closed in your life because of your disobedience—some of them permanently. But the story is not done. A new door presents itself. Jesus stands at that door and knocks. He wants to come in and meet with you in a new way, for a new season, for new purposes he wants to unfold in your life. He wants to heal your heart of the hardness. Only he can. No one willfully hardens their heart. They do it because sin deceives them into doing it. You see, a hard heart comes from a broken heart. Some situation or circumstance or relational dysfunction or trauma has broken your heart. You turned to all the wrong places. It resulted in your heart hardening over time, and now you find yourself in a wilderness of wandering.
I want you to notice, though, the impulse of the hardened heart in response to a closed door.
They mourned bitterly . . .
So far, so good. But it looks like they were sad about the consequences and not the condition of their hearts.
Early the next morning they set out for the highest point in the hill country, saying, “Now we are ready to go up to the land the LORD promised.”
Then this: “Surely we have sinned!” Note how this is hardly a confession. This is how a hardened heart deals with fault. They keep it super fuzzy. There may be a hint of admission but nowhere near true confession.
It’s kind of like saying you are sorry or trying to make amends at gunpoint or after the guilty verdict—as an effort to avoid the consequences. It doesn’t work that way. Hear Moses’s response:
But Moses said, “Why are you disobeying the LORD’s command? This will not succeed! Do not go up, because the LORD is not with you. You will be defeated by your enemies, for the Amalekites and the Canaanites will face you there. Because you have turned away from the LORD, he will not be with you and you will fall by the sword.”
There is only one appropriate, effective, and redemptive response for a person who has turned away from the Lord: turning back to the Lord—returning to the Lord—with all your heart. This is the new door, the open door, the door to the future, and it leads into a new room of healing, restoration, and wholehearted repentance—which is the comprehensive realignment of one’s life with the will and ways of Jesus. Just as a broken heart becomes a hardened heart, so a hardened heart must become a broken heart again. This is the way to the healed, whole, and holy heart. There is the heartbreak that leads to hardness and the heartbreak that leads to healing.
I sense I am talking to a lot of people today. Jesus is showing you the calcified and calloused places in your heart. He is showing you the symptoms of a critical spirit and a defensive posture and how the subtle and not-so-subtle dispositions of malcontentedness and contempt have set up shop in your spirit like malware on a computer. For some of you, these darkened ways seem to have taken you over. You literally can’t fix it, and you are so weary of trying to put a good face on it. It is so draining to live this way.
Be encouraged. Jesus can heal your heart beyond your imagining. You must give him complete access. The door only opens from your side. Locate yourself before him today. Declare the open door. Invite the Holy Spirit to begin the cleanse, to apply the salve, to order the new season of new creation. This is not the time to try to take the hill. It is the season for the healing of the heart.
PRAY
Father, we declare it: the doors of our hearts are open to the healing balm of Jesus. In fact, we are going to take them off the hinges. We are weary of trying to change our behavior while keeping the doors to our hearts closed. You have full and complete access. We will wait on you. You are the Lord our healer. Lead us in every way you see fit to help us—through wise counselors, to a band of brothers or sisters, to a pastor or shepherd friend, by your sovereign Word and Spirit. Yes, come, Holy Spirit, and re-break our broken and hardened hearts for your name’s sake, for our good, for others’ gain. We pray in Jesus’s name, amen.
JOURNAL
Do you struggle with a tendency to criticize others, to complain about situations, to be defensive about yourself, to withdraw from others when you feel offended? If so, these are all signs of a wounded heart. Jesus heals but you must open the door to him. It will take time, but it will be so worth it. Don’t wander in the wilderness another year, or another day.
SING
Today, we will sing "Be Still, My Soul" (hymn 346) from our Seedbed hymnal, Our Great Redeemer's Praise.
If you have an extra 5 minutes and 11 seconds today to linger with Jesus, here's a gift song to lead you. Over a decade ago Kari Jobe arranged and led this great hymn of healing we sang today. The lyric video is linked here.
For the Awakening,
J. D. Walt
