Jaded

[SavedByHim]

I am a new Christian (less than a year), and my heart really seems to have become hardened lately.

I read my Bible daily-it's pretty much all I read. I pray continuously. I tithe, donate to charities, etc. I just got baptized.

But I just don't feel any love for anyone anymore. I don't care about helping people or anything, like I used to. Little silly things are making me mad and irritable, like they used to.

I seem to be drifting further and further from God every day. I'm even laughing at crude jokes my friends tell.

I do NOT want to be like this! I do NOT want to get away from God. I want Him in my life!

Why is this happening? How can I get closer to God again? How can I soften my heart again, so that I care about people like I did when I first became a Christian?

I feel like my Christianity is nothing but an act now, and I'm a big hypocrit, like Jesus warns against in the Bible.

 

[Faithful Son]

I have the same problem sister, to the last word.

I don't have a solution yet, but as my member name implies, I am faithful. One thing Jesus blessed me with is keeping faith, even if it's so small no one knows except me.

We're in a dangerous zone as you know and I know, sometimes thoughts enter your mind that say "stuff it" I don't need to go on carrying my cross.

I ignore those thoughts, I'm not good at taking thoughts captive as the Bible says, but I ask the Holy Spirit to capture them and keep them away from me.

My bit of advice to you is plain, it's not a "motivational talk" it's not a mantra you should read all day long and force yourself to change. Surrender to God. All you are, all you want to be, your dreams, future, past and present, give it to the Lord in a willfull decision.

After you've surrendered to the Lord, nothing can take you or remove you from His grasp, nothing.

The way I surrendered to God a few years ago was not an act that I'd like to do over, but I made a commitment to God, to know Him in all my ways.

Like I said, I'm the same as you, I get ticked off, set off and really frustrated at myself and other people.

Keep believing in Jesus. He said everything we do and live for, is His plan. We may not know now at this moment what we should learn, maybe it's patience? Maybe it's actually learning what God's love truly is?

Don't sell yourself short, it's not worth it. God knows your heart and He knows you, He loves you, without compare, without measure, He loves you unconditionally.

God bless you
Faithful Son

 

[SavedByHim]

Thank you for your reply, Faithful Son! It's odd, how it happens, isn't it? I mean, we don't WANT it to happen,that's the thing. It would be different if we wanted to have a hardened heart, but we don't!

I've been reading Romans, and about how Paul says he "does the things he does not want to do". I'm not doing anything different...but my heart is!

I have prayed for God to conform my heart to His-so far this has not helped yet that I know of though. Although it does help with the bad thoughts in my head.

When I first became a Christian, I beat myself up horribly because I had not changed overnight. I expected to go from being a horrible sinner, to a little angel immedietely.

I did change a lot, but at the same time, all my bad thoughts and habits are still in my heart.

And Jesus preached a lot about hypocrisy, I know.

I'm not doing that bad with changing the outside of myself...but how on earth does a person change their heart? Are there any verses in the Bible on how to do this?

How exactly did you "Surrender everything?" Can you give me some steps on how to do this, or what to pray or whatever you did?

 

[Faithful Son]

Don't let me confuse you sister. I'm not here to cause confusion and that's the last thing I want to do.

My road and the way I came to repentance and the life I am leading is completely different to yours and anyone elses and I won't want to use my life as an example of doing things. More times I have fallen then afterwards see the daylight through God's grace.

To surrender to God is just my way of saying you choose to know Jesus in all your ways, in everything you do.

I would suggest spending time with God and bringing to Him your concerns and asking Him to be the ruler in your life.

This verse speaks to me:
Jeremiah 17:8-10 NKJV
8 For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not fear when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit.
9 “ The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
10 I, the LORD, search the heart,
I test the mind,
Even to give every man according to his ways,
According to the fruit of his doings.

Don't count on your heart to make your choices, we're creatures of emotion, that's a fact, but sometimes we have to put emotion to the side and say, even though I don't have a warm fuzzy feeling inside me, I know I serve the Lord, I live for Him and know Him in my walk.



I will keep you in prayer sister, be led by God first and foremost

 

[Coconut]

I'm not doing that bad with changing the outside of myself...but how on earth does a person change their heart? Are there any verses in the Bible on how to do this?

How exactly did you "Surrender everything?" Can you give me some steps on how to do this, or what to pray or whatever you did?

SavedByHim, you cannot change your heart. There are no "steps" to surrendering. There is not a single solitary thing you can do to enter Gods Kingdom. The preacher cannot help you. Church cannot help you. Your good deeds cannot help you. To surrender to Christ, is to accept you cannot save yourself, and accept that only HE can. This is truth, and this is our only salvation.
We must be born again. Only God can give this new birth, and this new birth gives us a new heart...


Please meditate on the following scripture...I trust they will help you understand.

Joh 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Joh 3:7 Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'


1Pe 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
1Pe 1:4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,
1Pe 1:5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

1Pe 1:22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,
1Pe 1:23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;

1Jn 5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father, loves whoever has been born of him.
1Jn 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.
1Jn 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
1Jn 5:4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith.

Heb 3:8 Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness,
Heb 3:9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years.
Heb 3:10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, 'They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.'
Heb 3:11 As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest.'"
Heb 3:12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.
Heb 3:13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.


Heb 4:6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience,
Heb 4:7 again he appoints a certain day, "Today," saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts."
Heb 4:8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.
Heb 4:9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God,
Heb 4:10 for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
Heb 4:11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
Heb 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Heb 4:13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Heb 4:14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
Heb 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Heb 4:16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

 

[Chad]

Sister yeshualives asked me to post this link of mp3's from Andrew Womack on her behalf to help you.

Hardness Of Heart - Audio Teaching - Andrew Wommack Ministries

I pray this blesses you.

 

[SavedByHim]

Thanks for the audios on hardened hearts, Chad!

And Coconut-I understand that a person cannot change their heart. So does that mean I'm just not a Christian anymore, since my heart is just not any good?

Yeah-I see the verses about "do not harden your heart" and all that. I am not doing it on purpose, becaus I enjoy sinning, or whatever. It's not like that at all. I seek God in everything. Literally everything. But I just seem to have no guidance here, and my heart just keeps getting harder-and I do not want it to!