CALLOUSED HEARTS

Image result for clip art showing ca calloused heart    In all four of the Gospels, and now Acts, I have seen continual confrontations with the religious Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the chief priests.  They have seen the miracles and the mighty works of our Lord, and have now seen the works of the disciples in Acts, and the response to TRUTH is the same: denial, jealousy, even murder.  We have seen John the Baptist murdered at the whelm of Herod,  Jesus is murdered by the same group, and now I come to the preaching of Stephen.  Stephen is reported to be a "man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit."  For his preaching, Stephen is brought before the Sanhedrin...the counsel chambers and court of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The sacred record describes those who are sitting in the Sanhedrin looking intently as Stephen, and the author, Luke, add, "and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel."  

Stephen has an audience as he preaches from Abraham to the crucifixion of the Lord.  Their response:  "they were furious and gnashed their teeth at Him...covering their ears and yelling at the top of their voice, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him."  They hear Stephen as he cries out, "LORD, DO NOT HOLD THIS SIN AGAINST THEM."  Acts 7:69.  A spectator is present and we will encounter him in a day or so, Saul of Tarsus.

Perhaps like me,  you wonder what is the process that culminates in callouses to the heart.  I know about callouses on the feet which require a pumice stone to be used to remove or to smooth out the callous. I am thinking that callouses on the heart are layers of resistance built up from experiencing life and its hurts.  Hurts come in myriad forms of pains of rejection, pains of loss, disappointments, and failed expectations we may put on others.  We foolishly allow callouses to layer over our hearts thinking we will protect the heart from any more of what we may consider as "abuses" and they may truly be that. I wonder if a layer over the heart may not begin when I choose to be impervious to the Word of God?  I choose independence and to control circumstances with the vow, "That will never happen to me again!"  Ole Sol reports it best in Proverbs 4:23, "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life."  Medically and physically, plaque causes detrimental damage to the heart.  Spiritually the same is true of callouses on and over the heart.  Would you be willing to check out your heart and if needs be, to take action against every layer and with the grace of God, remove the layers to experience health and wholeness...this is a process, no short-cuts or quick band-aid rip offs! Prescription: Apply the Word of God to your wounds.  Forever learning.  In process.  #IHAVETHREESONS.

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