Day 8: Living Unhardened

Readings for January 8: Ezekiel 2:1-3:11, Psalm 19:1-6, 9-11, 15, Romans 1:18-32

Why do so many people who have grown up knowing God fall away and those who have never known God cling so quickly and easily to Him?  It is a problem that we think is new, but even in Ezekiel it is the Israelites, not the foreigners, who have a hard time believing God.  So why is it?

I believe that it is because as Christians our hearts get hardened by the what that we lose sight of the Why.  It is like a man who works with his hands all day.  They get calloused by the labor that he does, helping him with the ability to do it longer.  Eventually however, those callouses get so large that they block off all sense of feeling to the hands.  Now the hands can continue to work but they no longer feel anything.  We become this way.  We put so much work into God’s Kingdom that we lose the feelings behind it.  We get so caught up in the what that we lose sight of the Why.

How can we mend?  Just like callouses, our hardened exterior can be scraped off.  It will hurt.  It will be painful.  But it will be revitalization.  Pray that God can open your eyes back up to the Why of things, so that we may continue to do the work He has called us to do.  Likewise it is through accepting the Gospel that we can realize the truth of the law.  As is written in the Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord V 10-11:

“Merely preaching the Law, without Christ, either makes proud people, who imagine that they can fulfill the Law by outward works, or forces them utterly to despair. Therefore, Christ takes the Law into His hands and explains it spiritually (Matthew 5:21–48; Romans 7:14; 1:18). He reveals His wrath from heaven on all sinners and shows how great it is. In this teaching sinners are directed to the Law, and from it they first learn to know their sins correctly, a confession that Moses could never wrestle out of them. For as the apostle testifies (2 Corinthians 3:14–15), even though Moses is read, the veil he put over his face is never lifted. So they cannot understand the Law spiritually, and what great things it requires of us, and how severely it curses and condemns us because we cannot keep or fulfill it. “But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed” (2 Corinthians 3:16).

“Christ’s Spirit must not only comfort, but also through the office of the Law “convict the world concerning sin” [John 16:8]. In the New Testament, as the prophet says, He must do the work of another (reprove), in order that He may ‹afterward› do His own work, which is to comfort and to preach grace [Isaiah 28:21]. To this end the Spirit was obtained for us through Christ and sent.”

And so my prayer this day is this:

Dear Heavenly Father who created the heavens and the earth, and felt such love for it that You sent Your Son to be our Savior and to die on the cross for our sins, let not our hearts become hardened to the works we do in Your name, and let not our hearts be calloused by this world.  Help us, Lord, to always have such a faith in You that keeps us feeling and knowing You.  This we pray through Jesus Christ, our risen Lord and Savior.  Amen.

May the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, keep your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.  Amen.