Tender Hearts
Good news, everybody! God loved us so much that, while we were in sin and separate from Him, He sent His sinless Son to die to pay the price for our sins. That Son was resurrected. He's alive today and He's coming back so we who believe in Him can be with Him forever.
All through the New Testament, we see people who encounter this Savior and their reaction is often a changed heart. I say it in that way because we also see people whose hearts are hardened, like the crowd's reaction to Christ as He explains what He is doing in John 12:35-43. The apostle compares their reaction to the words of Isaiah 6.10:
“He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.”
When the ancients talked about “the heart” they weren't talking about the organ pumping blood in our chests. Nor were they speaking of the romantic feelings that our culture has assigned to the metaphor. They were talking about the core of our being, the internal wellspring of our selves. It would be difficult to separate “the heart” from our concepts of Mind or Soul.
Scripture (and, I daresay, observable reality) testifies to the entirely corrupt nature of the human heart. We find ourselves in need of a new heart, but unable to do anything about it. We need a savior to change our heart, and we have just such a savior in Christ.
But we mustn't miss that scripture also commands us to soften our hearts. Ephesians 4:32 exhorts, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” We are told to be tenderhearted, and we can do this, because, as Isaiah prophesies about Christ in chapter 53, “He poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.”
Christian, today as we celebrate our risen Savior, let us soften our hearts and glorify Him for what He has done for us by being kind and forgiving as we have been forgiven.
