out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezek. 36:26. This is one of the most significant things that is written! This is how profoundly sin has corrupted and petrified the heart of man! People usually neither see nor understand this, but when the opportunity is there, it is clearly visible to an alarming degree. However, isn’t it wonderful that this prophecy can be entirely fulfilled through the work of Christ! Because of His indescribably great love for us, God is more than willing to perform such a glorious heart operation. It is up to us to desire it of Him. It is our choice! We will keep our heart of stone if we are content with it. It is clearly evident from various scriptures and from experience that people may have or receive a heart of stone, even if they believe in the work of Christ. There can be a fair amount of hardness in daily life in the hearts of dear brothers and sisters in the Lord. Criticism, reproach, accusation, judging, and a harsh tone of voice always proceed from a hard heart. The fact that a person does not ask for forgiveness when he has sinned against someone in word is the consequence of a hard heart; also if someone asks for forgiveness and the other person dryly and coldly answers, “Yes, I forgive you,” but does not forgive sincerely from the heart. This is also a result of a hard heart. And something as ungodly as slandering—and then not asking for forgiveness—is obviously the consequence of a heart of stone. Not only can the heart be more or less hard in spite of God’s goodness, but it can also be more or less hardened. Read in the Bible concordance under hard, hardness, hard-hearted, and stiff-necked; also under harden and hardening. Proverbs 28:13 and 14 are very significant: “He who covers his sins will not prosper . . . but he who hardens his heart will fall into calamity.” Therefore: acknowledge, confess your sins, and sincerely and humbly ask for forgiveness! Keep your heart tender and soft if you want to be with Jesus when He comes. The heart becomes harder every time a person sins without grieving over it and asking for forgiveness. The result is a gradually increasing hardness. As time goes by, it becomes more difficult to get it to melt. However, the opportunity is there: “Who turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a fountain of waters.” Ps. 114:8. “Do not harden your hearts . . . .” Ps. 95:8. “So when He had looked around at them . . . being grieved by the hardness of their hearts . . . .” Mark 3:5. This hardening is not very difficult to understand. They were so busy judging Jesus that they could not rejoice that a man was healed on a holy day. They did not show much compassion. It is considerably more difficult to understand that the disciples’ hearts proved to be hardened when they were amazed beyond measure that Jesus performed a new miracle, even though they had just witnessed a tremendous miracle previously. Mark 6:49-52. The profound truth concerning this is: If God’s work has not made a deep and lasting impression on us, this proves that our heart is hardened; also when we read or hear the Word of life in truth without it making a deep impression on us so that it is noticeable in our life. Then the heart is sure to be more or less hard! “Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened?” Mark 8:15-21. It is obvious that Jesus meant that this was the state they were in even though He stated it in the form of a question. This teaches us a serious lesson: If we do not understand the spiritual meaning of what we realistically ought to understand, the reason is that the heart is either hard or hardened. This in turn means that, unfortunately, there are many hardened brothers and sisters who do not understand many things they ought to have understood a long time ago. This agrees completely with Hebrews 5:12. Reading Hebrews 3:13 and 15, we see clearly that even if we are in the midst of the church of the living God, there is a danger that we can be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, that a hardening can take place even while hearing God’s voice: “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts . . . .” V. 15. Every time you hear God’s voice, you do one of two things: you either accept what you hear so that it accomplishes something in you, or you harden yourself so that it has no effect. This is clearly stated in Hebrews 4:2: “But the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.” How significant! If the heart is tender, the Word is mixed with faith in those who hear it. Then the person is re-created, transformed into that which the Word says. If not, it bounces off and is of no benefit whatsoever. The ironic thing is that knowledge can increase considerably; and knowledge by itself—unless it is obeyed—performs this woeful task of puffing up. 1 Cor. 8:1. Then it has quite simply caused harm instead of being beneficial. It is therefore of the utmost importance to melt completely so that the heart becomes tender and soft and pliable, acknowledging and receptive—to walk circumspectly in all areas so that you can always keep this tender, receptive heart, being zealously on guard against the least indication of hardening in any area of life or toward any of all the words of life. Example: “Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them.” Col. 3:19. He can only be tempted to become bitter toward her when she does not conduct herself as she ought. The Word says that the husband shall love her then as well. Either the husband’s heart is so tender and compassionate that it melts together with this exhortation, loving her with all of his heart when she is so-called impossible, or it is so hard that he becomes bitter. Then the Word does not benefit him. This is as simple as 2 + 2 = 4. Example: “Wives, submit to your own husbands . . . .” V. 18. Either the wife’s heart is so tender and soft that it melts together with this Word, with the result that she does his will with joy, without protesting or objecting, or she hardens herself, contradicting him because she permits herself to think something else. Then the heart is fairly hard because at this point she callously rejects God’s word. She cannot comprehend this word. Then Jesus’ word is especially apt in this situation: “Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened?” Mark 8:17. Example: “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” 1 Tim. 6:6. When the heart is tender and soft, this word melts together with the heart. The two become one, which means that contentment with all earthly things is immediately evident, to God’s glory and for the benefit of one’s fellow men. If not, then the heart is hardened so that the person is unreceptive to contentment, continuing as before, just as indifferent and unimpressed! Alas, alas! What a presumptuous hardening. Example: What would happen if sisters took this word of God to heart about adorning themselves with a meek and quiet spirit? Then this spirit would melt together with faith in their hearts so that we would always see and hear them as graceful in their conduct in daily life. In the opposite case, the word has bounced off their hardened hearts. Either / or. The deceitfulness of sin gives rise to a hardening. What does that mean? It means that I, because of my sinful inclinations, am misled to defend myself and to explain away the truth, with the result that it is impossible for me to understand that I am doing something that is terribly wrong, despite the fact that I am absolutely not obedient to the Word. An especially apt and extremely serious example is this word spoken by Jesus: “Judge not!” What have most believers done with this word? Has it mixed with faith in their hearts? Not at all! Most believers have not received it; on the contrary, they have hardened their hearts with the result that it has become a habit to criticize and judge almost everything and everyone. As far as I am concerned, I am totally convinced that it is precisely this great, fateful evil that is the main reason for it not going well with so many people, and that it is going very badly with some in spite of all the words of God they have heard and read. If the heart is warm and tender and good, such a word will inevitably mix with faith in our hearts to the extent that we will always be finished with the lust to judge. For this sickness is fatal; all of humanity suffers from it. It begins with constantly judging. Imagine if all your judgments were recorded on a tape recorder and replayed publicly! It can easily continue with condemning someone—and thus you are condemned yourself. Be quick to let your heart melt! Be quick to ask for forgiveness! Be quick to take your harsh words back! Every harsh word deposits something hard in your own heart and possibly in other hearts as well—just as much as every act of mercilessness, every contradiction, every wasted opportunity to ask for forgiveness, or to forgive others, as well as every critical comment and every spiteful word and every suspicious word. All these things proceed from a hard heart and make the heart even harder. In this way it becomes an ingrained, nasty habit. The longer it lasts, the more difficult it is to get rid of it. If there is any hardness in your heart—whether it is little or much—may it melt today!Elias Aslaksen

Great gifts of the Spirit are listed in 1 Corinthians 13, and in all probability they are the greatest gifts there are. But then we read the following: If we do not have love, we are nothing. Then we can think like this: What is love? When people think of love they think in particular about feelings. It is difficult to separate love from infatuation. Infatuation is feelings, but love is faith. We read what love is: love is longsuffering. Longsuffering has to do with my relationship to other people. I have to be patient on account of myself so that I can overcome myself. Longsuffering has to do with other people, which means I have to bear with them, and the feelings I have when it is a question of being longsuffering are completely different from feeling infatuated. It is faith, and faith lays its life down. Those who do not believe draw back. So then, love is longsuffering and kind; it does not envy. Those who do not have love become envious. What kind of feelings do they have then? We also speak about “bitter envy.” That is what Cain had when he killed Abel. Love does not become bitter. I do not feel infatuated when I am tempted to be bitter; I do not feel that I have love; not at all, but it is love that causes me not to become bitter. I need to take up my cross and deny myself. It is love alone that makes me valuable. Talents and gifts of the Spirit do not make me valuable, but if I have love, my gifts and talents can become valuable. They can even become very valuable. We read in 1 John 4:7-8: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” This is a very important lesson. “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” V. 10. This is love. In other words, it is very good if someone loves me and I love him in return, but that is not the evidence that I have love. When the other person does something bad to me, what do I do then? That is what manifests love. Jesus gave His life for us while we were enemies. Therefore we read: “This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son.” Love gives; it gives not only to those who are good. Not at all! It loves its enemies; it loves first. You are not an overcomer if you cannot manage this. No matter how difficult circumstances can be in this world, whether it is between married couples, between parents and children, between siblings, on the job site, or wherever it may be, you cannot bring any order into any of these situations unless you are in God. Everything is in disorder outside of God. Only if we are in God can matters be brought into order. We must remember that. Thorns and thistles began to grow when Adam lost contact with God, resulting in anxieties. I want to say this to all the young people: You must never imagine that you can gain any glory without God; it is impossible. You can get more money by lying; perhaps you can get much more money by cheating and defrauding, but you will not get this money without thistles and thorns and many anxieties. How much better it is to have little money without thorns and thistles and many worries. This is a mystery. We read further: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” V. 11. Isn’t it true that it is difficult to connect an expression like “ought to” with love? Just try it, and you will see that it is very difficult to associate the word “ought” with love. The reason is that we are apt to think of infatuation. By way of example: A man falls in love, and it doesn’t occur to him that he “ought” to love the one with whom he has fallen in love, neither is it possible to force someone to fall in love with someone. It is a matter of feelings. But then we read that husbands ought to love their wives. Eph. 5:28. “Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them.” Col. 3:19. Then infatuation has vanished. Then coldness and malice will appear if you do not have a connection with God. We are obligated to love one another. Thus the word “ought” produces faith. I can begin to be longsuffering and good by laying my life down. I cannot consider my personal welfare if I am to be longsuffering. Not at all! I have to give my life. That is godly, and then everything comes into order.Sigurd Bratlie