I thank God for a soft heart.
A heart that is soft is a heart that is responsive. A hard heart is simply unable to respond. It’s very hardness makes it insensitive to feeling and unresponsive to touch. What an Incredible gift it is when God softens our heart!
Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. -Matthew 24:12
Sin kills our ability to give and receive love
When sin increases it creates calluses. When I was learning guitar I longed for calluses on my fingers so that I wouldn’t feel the pain of pressing the strings, but no one longs for a dead unfeeling heart!
The soft heart needs but a breath to blow upon it; a hard heart is impervious to a hammer!
What makes Jesus accessible? A soft heart, for reason of it being kept holy. What makes Jesus beautiful? What makes Him attractive?? Holiness.
It is, in fact, the holy blood of Jesus that has given us access to a holy God. There’s no other way to gain access to the Heavenly Father than through his Son, Jesus. You need to enter through a soft and holy heart.
The Bible talks about the “beauty of holiness”. There are times when God manifests His holy presence to us and it takes our breath away! Jesus is incomparably beautiful because of His holiness. Jesus is also incomparably accessible; there are no barriers to His heart.
What is it about holiness that is so compelling?
Jesus did not repel people because of His holiness. People were actually attracted to Him because of it. The artificial, “put on” holiness of the Pharisees repelled people, but Jesus possessed the very heart of God. They came from everywhere to seek Him out because of that heart!
Jesus had an open heart because He had a holy heart. It was soft, and open, and always responsive.
No one has ever possessed a softer heart than the Son of God, and no one has ever loved as deeply as Him.
Avoid sin at all costs. Whatever it touches becomes as hard as concrete. That includes your heart.
They are darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts. -Ephesians 4:18
It’s hard to gain entrance to a heart of stone. Sin creates an impenetrable wall around your heart and eventually your whole heart turns to stone.
What starts as just a little wall ends up hardening your whole heart.
It’s impossible to love if you can’t get out from behind that wall, or if people can’t get in.
The picture I just painted is rather bleak, isn’t it? Who hasn’t been touched by sin and their heart made hard because of it?
We’ve all sinned, and we’ve all been sinned against, but thank God for the power of the blood of Jesus to turn stony hearts into hearts of flesh again!
I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. -Ezekiel 36:25