You Own the Hardest Known Substance in the Universe
One automatically thinks of diamonds as being the hardest substance there is, but there is something harder, much harder. It is so hard that nobody (including God) can crack it or make it yield. Yet, the owner of this material has the full control over its malleability. What is this mysterious substance? It is a persons “will” in regards to their relationship with God. You might be thinking that “certainly God could cause a man’s heart toward Him to change.” Oh, He could, but, He won’t because if He forced someone into a relationship with Him, the relationship would not be one of love; it would instead be one of slavery because love cannot exist without ability to choose to love or not to love.
This “hardest substance” phenomenon can be seen in the encounter between Moses and the Pharaoh of Egypt (Exodus 5). The Pharaoh himself, as well as the general population, considered the Pharaoh to be a god and as such, Pharaoh was not in a mind to let the Children of Israel go as Moses had requested. Despite a series of plagues escalating in their intensity and seriousness, Pharaoh would not change his mind. Instead, Pharaoh’s heart toward God and Moses “hardened” against them. Why the “heart?” This is not the pump that moves your blood, it is the seat of your being and where the actual battle between good and evil are played out and in a contest between the mind and the heart, the desires of the heart most always make a convert of the mind.
Even today God works in the circumstances and timing of a persons life to woo and encourage them to look up beyond themselves and establish a relationship with Him. But, if God is continually told to “shove off” like Pharaoh did, He will. God’s desire is that everyone will enter into a close and personal relationship with Him. Ezekiel 33:11… “Say to them: ‘As I live,’ says the Lord GOD, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’ He is speaking to the Jews here, but in the larger scriptural context, His plea is to everyone because the Jews were supposed to bring “light (salvation) to the Gentiles, (Isaiah 42:6).
As we get older something becomes undeniably apparent, life is really short. Today is the time of salvation because tomorrow (and the events therein) are unknown. Therefore, seek the Lord today while you can. God said above for us to turn from our own way and accept His way. Jesus is knocking on the door of your heart and can’t come in unless you open it because your heart holds the key. It is a key of humility that will unlock and allow the door of your heart to open (Psalm 149:4). I pray that you will, here is how.
Photo by Alicia Solario from FreeImages