Fix Your Eyes

We are all carrying, or have carried, hurts from our past. If we let them, these wounds have the power to influence our decisions for the rest of our lives. We give our pain this power when we are continually thinking about it, replaying it in our minds or coming up with ways that it could have been avoided.

What this does is keep the wound open. It could have happened twenty years ago and be as fresh in our minds as if it happened a month ago.

It may sound like this is the opposite of a hardened heart, but it isn’t. This is one of the definitions of a hardened heart, because a hard heart is one that is unresponsive to God. When we are more responsive to our pain than our heavenly Father, our heart is hard.

In this case we could say that our heart is cold. That’s what our pain does to us, it makes us cold. We turn inward and focus on protecting ourselves from ever being hurt again, and in the process, we miss out on the blessings of God.

We stop giving our pain influence and power in our lives when we turn away from it. If we’re going to turn away from it we have to turn to something else. What is that something else? Jesus.

Hebrews 12:2a says, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith.”

As long as we are fixing our eyes on our pain, it will continue to have power over us. We should fix our eyes on Him. When our focus is on Jesus our healer, our hearts will be healed.

We will no longer identify with our loss, tragedies and missed opportunities. We will identify with our righteousness in Christ.

Keeping our focus on Jesus will make us sensitive and receptive to the love of God. We won’t be cold and unfeeling anymore. We’ll be able to trust Him and walk in the plan He has for us.

It all starts with turning away from the mistakes and pain of the past and toward our loving Savior, Jesus Christ.

Recognizing a Hardened Heart

There are many people who read books and articles or hear sermons about a hardened heart and immediately start thinking about everyone else in their life, because there is no way they could be talking about them. However, that kind of thinking is a sign of a hardened heart. If we refuse to see the need for healing or growth, our hearts have become hardened by pride.

If we allow our hearts to continue this way, our lives will be unproductive and we’ll be frustrated. The first step in solving this problem is recognizing that there is a problem. We have to realize that we have a hardened heart towards God in one way or another.

We don’t need to condemn ourselves for this. We just need to know if it’s true about us and allow God to work in our lives to fix the problem.

How do we know if we have a hardened heart or not?

One of the best ways to find out is by asking God. He promises to give us wisdom for every area of our lives. He’ll show us where we have shut Him out and help us soften our hearts.

There are ways that we can see where our hearts are hardened in our day-to-day lives. One indicator of a hardened heart is if we need constant validation from everyone around us.

If we always need other people to tell us how good we are, what a great job we’re doing, etc., then we have placed our confidence in man and not in God. What we’re saying is, “God, I know the Bible says that you love me and that I’m righteous in Christ, but I don’t totally believe it, so I’m going to continue to seek love and approval elsewhere.”

This is a spirit of fear and insecurity. We are afraid of the idea that what God says about us isn’t actually true, and it makes us insecure around people. So we have to constantly make sure that we’re on good terms with them.

God created us to get everything we need from Him. If He says that we are loved and approved of, that should be more than enough. When we go around seeking

approval from everyone else, it means that we aren’t putting our faith in our heavenly Father; we’re putting it in man, and we have a hardened heart.

How do we fix this problem?

Through the power and word of God.

The Bible tells us in 2 Timothy 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

The spirit of fear that makes us insecure and timid around people is not from God. That means we don’t have to accept it. We have to resist the need to seek out the approval of man.

The first step is how we talk to ourselves. We need to tell ourselves that we are the righteousness of God in Christ. We don’t just need to do this once a day. We need to do this every time we sense feelings of inadequacy creeping into our minds. Confessing the word of God will cause us to overcome the spirit of fear.

We also need to make a conscious effort to stop asking everyone what they think about every aspect of our lives. We don’t need everyone’s opinion about our

outfit, our hair, our choices, etc. We should seek the wisdom of God and the counsel of strong, godly people and let everyone else’s opinions fall where they may.

When we do these two things, we’ll see our hearts soften towards God. The voice of God will be clearer because it won’t be drowned out by everyone else’s voice. We’ll be more confident because our approval will come from our absolutely loving heavenly Father and
not the fickle opinions of man.

This is just one way to tell if our hearts are hardened. We’ll look at more signs of a hardened heart and how to move past them in the weeks to come.

Keeping a soft heart

The people we’re around the most have the easiest access to our hearts, whether we know it or not. Our coworkers, friends and, obviously, our spouses have the ability to speak directly to our hearts. Hopefully this is a good thing in all of our lives. We need people who can speak the Word and life into us when we lose sight of who we are in Christ.

There are people who do the opposite though. Some people speak negativity and doubt and, because they are close to us, or we respect them, we allow those words into our hearts.

This is so important because we will become like the people who have the most influential voices in our lives. If these people are angry, negative, self-absorbed and filled with doubt, then we shouldn’t be surprised when our behavior becomes a reflection of theirs.

One thing we must know about this truth is that even if we spend our time filling our hearts with the word of God and worshiping Him, we can still have a hard heart because of our relationships.

1 Corinthians 15:33 says, “Do not be deceived: ‘Evil company corrupts good habits.’”

We can spend time cultivating good spiritual disciplines and keeping a sensitive heart toward God just to have it undone by the worldly-minded people around us.

Sometimes we can fight against this by simply removing these people from our lives. This might sound harsh, but if certain people are constantly trying to move our focus away from our heavenly father to the negative circumstances around us, then we don’t need their voices in our lives.

However, sometimes we can’t just walk away from certain relationships. If your spouse is a negative person, then you obviously can’t remove him or her from your life. In these circumstances you have to learn to strengthen yourself in the Lord the way King David did in 1 Samuel 30:6.

Everyone around David was distressed and angry, and they decided to turn their anger to David. Instead of giving in to their anger and believing what everyone was saying about him, David encouraged himself with the words of God.

This is what we should do when the people that are closest to us only seem to speak death. Instead of allowing those words to penetrate our hearts and influence our lives, we simply need to speak the word of God to ourselves. This will keep our hearts from becoming hard towards our heavenly father. It will also help keep our hearts from becoming hard towards the people around us.