Grace to be Human

“And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth:”

Mark 4:5

The world will never become too complex for the parable of the sower. It continues to diagnose man’s most hidden problems in a simple allegory. Today we marvel at the second cause of unbelief when the Word of God is sown in the world: stony ground, or, hardness of heart.

Hardness of heart is likened to stubbornness. Often in the Old Testament it was called ‘stiffnecked.’ This is the first step in a son becoming a rebel, and the last step in an infidel’s trip to hell. When a man’s opinions become his creed, he becomes unreasonable, then he becomes wicked. (see 2 Thessalonians 3:2) Why? His heart has turned to stone.

A hard heart is the first sign of spiritual dying. I cannot fully explain it medically, though I have heard of ‘hardening of the arteries’. What I do know, Biblically, is that the heart dies of hardening before the body does. It was said of Nabal (the fool), when he heard of Abigail’s advice and David’s mercy, “that his heart died within him, and he became as a stone.” (1 Samuel 25:37) His body died ten days later.

Soft before spiritual

What I see in believers is a borrowed ‘Catholic’ habit of baptizing a fault to make it ‘christian’. This is easy to see in the realms of drunkenness, perversion, and skepticism. The Catholic habit is take the drunk and make him a priest and the wine a sacrament. Take the perversion and call it celibacy. Take the skeptic and call him a ‘mystic.’ Nothing changes inside the heart of the man– he follows his own lust just as he has always done. His heart is unchanged. He is hard toward the Word of God.

Saved folk often hide behind this same cloak in their conversation. They take pride in fruitless habits and call them ‘tradition’. They call their ruts of procedure, ‘uncompromising’. They call their stubbornness, ‘discipline’. All are just falsetto for having a hard heart.

Have thine own way, Lord!
Have thine own way!
Thou art the potter, I am the clay
Mold me and make me
After Thy will--
While I am waiting
Yielded and still.

What we ought to be is what God wants us to be. We cannot become that if we already are glazed over. The heart of man is at its worst when it becomes “fully set” (Ecc. 8:11) to do evil. For well-intentioned or rebellious reasons we stiffen up, and there is no hope of God having His own way.

Human before Holy

You see, no matter our intent, God’s will has to happen God’s way. We cannot become what He wants us to be by making up our mind to do it. Self-determination is still SELF; if we could gain holiness by sheer will-power, we wouldn’t need the Gospel.

Do you understand the conflict of the flesh and Spirit? In any of Paul’s Epistles, it is clear to see that the flesh is bad. It is an enemy of true holiness. It keeps us from thinking and acting spiritual, or what the Bible tells us to do. The flesh is weak and unreliable. Yet flesh–our flesh– when it is acknowledged that it is truly weak, is a step toward God having His way.

“But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.”

Galatians 2:17

Paul said that the sin of the flesh is more evident when compared to the real work of the Spirit in justifying AND sanctifying a man. The shortcomings of the flesh are not ‘baptized’, excused, or ignored. The failings of the human heart are… intended to reprove us? …necessary to humble us? Our failings can only be understood from God’s perspective.

Let me show what I read that put this together: Ezekiel 11:19-20

“And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:

That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

Did you see that? The fleshly heart is not magnified for its sanctity or for its spirituality. It is regarded because it is soft. Sinful though that heart may be, it is sensitive to the influence of the Word of God. A stony heart is insensitive to the Holy Spirit; irredeemable. God can and will work with a heart that is still soft to Him. In fact, Ezekiel said the Lord will give that kind of heart to people He loves.

May we retain the Bible view of our frail hearts. May we not avoid that truth. God understands, and grants us grace enough to be human.

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