Daily Word

The heart is mentioned six times in Hebrews chapters three and four.

Some of the greatest secrets of the spiritual life are revealed in these chapters: a continuous sensitivity to the Voice of God through the Holy Spirit, and immediate, submissive obedience to whatever He says in childlike faith and trust in Him.

God wants to bring us into His own fullness and rest, but stubbornness, refusal to listen and obey, is

one of the greatest obstacles to entering into the fullness of spiritual life, the “rest” that is

mentioned in these chapters.

This was the reason that the Israelites who went out of Egypt under Moses, never entered into the promised land of fullness.

For the same reason many who have started off to follow Christ, never get into the promised fullness of the life in the Spirit.

The heart is the centre of the spiritual life and that´s where a living faith must be born.

Two very important words are used to reveal the reason for the development of an insensitive, hard heart: these words are “disobedience” and “unbelief”. Together they destroy the faith that is necessary to enter into the rest.

The word used for disobedience means ‘a refusal to allow oneself to be persuaded, to be uncompliant by withholding belief and obedience’. In other words, it is negligence, or refusal to listen to the promises of God until faith is born in the heart, a faith that results in obedience.

This shows how closely related obedience and faith are.

The word unbelief means ‘a lack of trust and confidence’ in God, which is depicted as “an evil, unbelieving heart departing from the living God.”

So, we see how important it is to allow God to break all stubborn disobedience in our hearts and then to develop sensitivity to the voice of the Spirit, so that obedient and trustful faith can be born in our hearts.