Prayer: Father, may my heart be soft as clay, yielding to Your touch. Amen.
Reading: Zechariah 7 key: vs. 12-13 “Indeed, they made their hearts as hard as flint preventing them from hearing the Torah or the words that Adonai-Tzva’ot sent by His Ruach through the former prophets. Consequently, great wrath came from Adonai-Tzva’ot. It came about that just as He called and they did not listen, so they would call and I would not listen,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot.” TLV
Attention: Have you ever seen someone who had a hard heart towards others or even God? Zechariah compared the hearts of his fellow countrymen as ‘hard as flint preventing them from hearing the Torah or the words of Adonai-Tzva’ot sent by His Ruach through the former prophets.”
A hardened heart does not hear God, nor does it hear anyone like His messengers. A hard heart gets nothing from the scriptures. His hardness blocks him from hearing anyone. Zechariah uses the analogy of a rock-hard heart, composed of flint, a hard rock historically used to make tools.
The question of the day, “How hard is your heart?” If you have ever made a statement like; “I’m never going to talk to him again,” or “I’ll never forgive him,” you suffer from hard heart syndrome.
I suggest that our hearts would be like soft clay, so that God could be the Master Potter and fashion us as He wills.
Interesting to me is the declaration by Zechariah that if we do not listen to Adonai and His word, why are we surprised when He does not listen? Have you ever heard someone say, “I feel like God does not listen to my prayers?” God is reciprocal. He listens to us when we listen to Him. When we do not listen, neither does He.
Action: I choose to listen and obey God’s word.
Yield: I choose to submit to the authority of Adonai.
Engage: I choose to actively engage with the Holy Spirit in listening to God.
Relationship: I choose to live in holy, obedient relationship with Adonai.
Memory Verse: Isaiah 45:9 “Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker—An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing?’ Or the thing you are making say, ‘He has no hands’? TLV
Music Video: Casting Crowns—In the Hands of the Potter, Only Jesus https://youtu.be/8-ye3LYfoHQ?si=TyjFDMRIf9X2DJgF
Remember, “Abide in Yeshua, today!”