Reprobate mind and hardness of heart

Rosesandthorns said:

Exodus 9:12 ESV / 105 helpful votes
But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had spoken to Moses.

1. I've been a Christian now for 2 years.
2. I believe Jesus Christ is Lord.
3. My heart is hard, prideful, arrogant and vain. 4. I don't want to be this way. 5. I looked at turning from my sin as oh I am unaccepted by Jesus Christ if I sin (I was opening doors to demonic through sin) a demonic spirit / spirits attatched and continued to harden me I know this because I feel them constant. I want to believe God hasn't given me up but I can't deny the countless times.

I'm wondering in truth now is it possible for someone who's heart is so hardened that they genuinely want to feel repentance, seek repentance they can't because they have grieved the Holy Spirit where they cannot know conviction? I am almost certain that I've done this over time. I don't feel I am genuine in my heart because it has been hardened, if so, how can one repent?... it's so difficult.

I feel no conviction other than my own understanding that it is wrong to do certain things but that deep down I don't feel sorrow, not the sorrow I would feel as a child isn't there any more. This affects me in my prayers, repentance and salvation as I feel false when I pray.
I feel as though I'm typing the "I'm sorry Lord" and because of my hardness of heart I can't see what's going on. I don't want pity I just want to figure out what's causing the hardness

I don't want to complain but it's been 10 years now I've been dealing with chronic illness, the lack of God's voice and feeling isolated and alone and in that time I have sinned willfully while knowing the truth, I know there are a lot of things inside of me that need repentance from but I keep telling myself God has already given up on me and it is too difficult to reach those feelings deep down. I am in so much pain as I write this just lay in bed in agony. My eyes look dead when I look in the mirror. My soul feels empty. I don't really know how much time I have left.. I just cling to the tiniest hope of the mercy of Jesus Christ that I can be brought back.

Thank you for reading I would really appriciate any advice.

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We believe in Christ by grace but the fullness of the Spirit comes through repentance. Repentance starts in the thought realm. Here's my approach to walking in the Spirit.

“Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” (2 Corinthians 10:5) (KJV 1900)

We censor every impure thought or imagination. And change the channel in our thinking on any thought that does not conform to obedience to Christ.

And we replace it with:

“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

Knowing Jesus is God and God is love. So Jesus is lord of our lives when love rules our thoughts and actions.

Rosesandthorns said:

Exodus 9:12 ESV / 105 helpful votes
But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had spoken to Moses.

1. I've been a Christian now for 2 years.
2. I believe Jesus Christ is Lord.
3. My heart is hard, prideful, arrogant and vain. 4. I don't want to be this way. 5. I looked at turning from my sin as oh I am unaccepted by Jesus Christ if I sin (I was opening doors to demonic through sin) a demonic spirit / spirits attatched and continued to harden me I know this because I feel them constant. I want to believe God hasn't given me up but I can't deny the countless times.

I'm wondering in truth now is it possible for someone who's heart is so hardened that they genuinely want to feel repentance, seek repentance they can't because they have grieved the Holy Spirit where they cannot know conviction? I am almost certain that I've done this over time. I don't feel I am genuine in my heart because it has been hardened, if so, how can one repent?... it's so difficult.

I feel no conviction other than my own understanding that it is wrong to do certain things but that deep down I don't feel sorrow, not the sorrow I would feel as a child isn't there any more. This affects me in my prayers, repentance and salvation as I feel false when I pray.
I feel as though I'm typing the "I'm sorry Lord" and because of my hardness of heart I can't see what's going on. I don't want pity I just want to figure out what's causing the hardness

I don't want to complain but it's been 10 years now I've been dealing with chronic illness, the lack of God's voice and feeling isolated and alone and in that time I have sinned willfully while knowing the truth, I know there are a lot of things inside of me that need repentance from but I keep telling myself God has already given up on me and it is too difficult to reach those feelings deep down. I am in so much pain as I write this just lay in bed in agony. My eyes look dead when I look in the mirror. My soul feels empty. I don't really know how much time I have left.. I just cling to the tiniest hope of the mercy of Jesus Christ that I can be brought back.

Thank you for reading I would really appriciate any advice.

Click to expand...

You’re not alone.

Every day I pray that the Lord will grant me true repentance and a diligent heart to seek Him, and ask Him to not abandon me as I have abandoned Him. Sin and fall, repent, repeat...

I need to trust that He is merciful and doesn’t want any of us to be lost, and that He is much greater than we are and can do anything He wills.

Take it one day at a time. Dont worry about yesterday or tomorrow. Worry only about today. The bible says that Gods mercies are new every morning. I surely need mercy. I will sing to the Lord.

lamentations 3:19 I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.
20 I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.
21 Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:

22 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”

25 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
26 it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.

"I just cling to the tiniest hope of the mercy of Jesus Christ that I can be brought back".

This. You said it yourself. That tiniest hope is the biggest, most important thing you have. It might seem like it's tiny, powerless and weak, but it's the exact opposite. So you'll cling to it. Keep clinging. And you will, because it's not ultimately you that's clinging to it, it's the Spirit working in you. Whatever you suffer from, whatever you feel, whatever you fear, keep coming back to have hope in Jesus Christ.

Right now, you seem so confused and burdened that I'd advise you to stop staring at your sins as if you can figure everything out that way. Stop staring at them, you won't find answers there right now. Stop letting yourself get beaten down by them. Christ is bigger than it, bigger than your failures. God understands it better than you.

About feeling false when you pray, how about just praying as you are. I've found that I can't fool God. I absolutely cannot pretend. If you tell God you feel false when you pray, there is nothing false about that. You're telling the truth. Approach Him in truth, not as what you think you should be like. Think of a good father here on earth, if he has a troubled child, how he will take care of that child. God is infinitely better than that. Pour it out to Him. Tell Him how it is, just like you told us. Don't think about what you should say. Open up to Him as you are. Ask for more faith, ask for more love, ask for more understanding, ask for Him to take care of you, ask for patience for yourself to let God be God. He is the ultimate source, not you. He is love, and He won't turn you away. He CAN'T turn you away, because even if we aren't faithful, He is. He already gave us His Son. Not in contempt, but as an act of divine love. Remember what His Son said about those who crucified Him, and to the thief on the cross? HE BEGGED FATHER GOD TO FORGIVE THOSE WHO WERE KILLING HIM, AND HE IMMEDIATELY WELCOMED THE THIEF. So in all your self-judgement, look at Christ on the cross, look at that love you're so desperate to have for yourself. You already have it, but like me and many others, for whatever reason we put up barricades around ourselves to shield us from that love we so desperately need. We take every excuse, even every passage in the Bible itself to tell ourselves that "we aren't worthy of that love. It's for others. I'm ruined". We think of Christ so easily as some kind of trap, that if we fail to live a holy life (which we will), we're doomed. We think He's worse than the laws of Moses. We think He's a tormentor instead of a savior. But look at the cross, look at Christ praying for those who were killing Him.

I repeat this a lot, but we can't chase feelings. And if we could catch them, they'd betray us. My feelings have betrayed me so many times that I'm very familiar with that battle. When my feelings tell me that I am doomed, God has left me or whatever, I now choose to not listen to them, even if I must feel them for a while. It's been very hard, but it always leads to going to Christ, asking for Him to take care of everything, to give me more of Him and less of my old self. Faith is not a feeling. If it was, it wouldn't last. Sometimes we may get a deep feeling as a blessing, and it should be treated as such, but faith is more like a choice: "I want this. I want to believe this with all my heart". It's something you cling to. It's a rock, and feelings - although they try - can't do anything to that rock. Jesus Christ is the rock. He will stand.

So hang on to that rock. Have faith, even if you feel like you don't have faith. Have faith that He will take care of you. Have that child-like hope, and no matter how weak you are, it's just a chance for the Spirit to do its work. In our weakness God's strength is made perfect. Many of us never truly understand how weak we are. But when we do, we shouldn't stare and worship our own failures as if they have more power than God and Christ. We can calm our hearts, go to Christ as we are, no matter how filthy, no matter how weak, no matter how wrong, no matter how unfeeling, no matter how unconvinced, no matter how fearful, no matter how incapable - and we will find peace for our souls, time and again, and again, and again. Because if we take His love and grace, if we hold on to it no matter what our feelings might tell us, in time we will feel that love too. Because we trusted Him first. Not because we felt we did. And who trusts God more than those who have learned to go to Him in all their struggles, in all their weakness, through all their tribulations? They don't trust themselves anymore. They know better. And eventually, their sins will go away. Little by little. Even if many people don't get rid of it all in this life, the work of sanctification is ongoing, the new man and woman in spirit is growing, and we didn't do it. None of our worrying, none of our fears or tricks did it. God did it. God works in us, we just have to let Him be God. And when we do that, eventually we will feel glad. We will feel relief. We will love out of a happy, thankful heart.

Said a prayer for you dear. Praying for God's peace to come in its own time, for Christ to hold your hand and heart in your walk, for His love to rule over all. It's okay. You can breathe. You are loved, not because we should deserve it but because He is love, and He will continue His work in you.

I'd also advice professional psychiatric help, if you need it. I've needed it. There were times when it didn't work, and it took many many years, but at some point it started working. About the same time when I started to have hope in Christ.

God is merciful. Do not get yourself into thinking God has left you, because He has not. Nor did He make your heart a stone.

If you find your heart a stone, ask for a new one.

Ezekiel 36:26: "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."

But there is one condition: do you want to remove this heart of stone? How much would you give up to remove it? Sometimes, we do not want to follow God because we want to stick to our own way. And that is where the hardening of the heart comes from. Will you instead seek a wonderful way of living, that Christ is your Lord and you follow his will but never yours? If you truly want this instead of your own will that makes this heart of stone, then God will remove it, for God never takes away things a person does not really want to lose.

I am sorry that I am really not good at giving advices, and I might say something harsh, but you will have to figure out what you choose. Repentence is not only about saying sorry for the sins you have, it is about turning from the old ways and live in the new ways. Deny yourself and obey the truth, look not to your own sin but the beauty of this new lifestyle, that you will find what you hold on to is nothing but rubbish compare to it.

Rosesandthorns said:

Exodus 9:12 ESV / 105 helpful votes
But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had spoken to Moses.

1. I've been a Christian now for 2 years.
2. I believe Jesus Christ is Lord.
3. My heart is hard, prideful, arrogant and vain. 4. I don't want to be this way. 5. I looked at turning from my sin as oh I am unaccepted by Jesus Christ if I sin (I was opening doors to demonic through sin) a demonic spirit / spirits attatched and continued to harden me I know this because I feel them constant. I want to believe God hasn't given me up but I can't deny the countless times.

I'm wondering in truth now is it possible for someone who's heart is so hardened that they genuinely want to feel repentance, seek repentance they can't because they have grieved the Holy Spirit where they cannot know conviction? I am almost certain that I've done this over time. I don't feel I am genuine in my heart because it has been hardened, if so, how can one repent?... it's so difficult.

I feel no conviction other than my own understanding that it is wrong to do certain things but that deep down I don't feel sorrow, not the sorrow I would feel as a child isn't there any more. This affects me in my prayers, repentance and salvation as I feel false when I pray.
I feel as though I'm typing the "I'm sorry Lord" and because of my hardness of heart I can't see what's going on. I don't want pity I just want to figure out what's causing the hardness

I don't want to complain but it's been 10 years now I've been dealing with chronic illness, the lack of God's voice and feeling isolated and alone and in that time I have sinned willfully while knowing the truth, I know there are a lot of things inside of me that need repentance from but I keep telling myself God has already given up on me and it is too difficult to reach those feelings deep down. I am in so much pain as I write this just lay in bed in agony. My eyes look dead when I look in the mirror. My soul feels empty. I don't really know how much time I have left.. I just cling to the tiniest hope of the mercy of Jesus Christ that I can be brought back.

Thank you for reading I would really appriciate any advice.

Click to expand...

You should start declaring and decreeing things over your life in Jesus name. You should do it everyday and then you will see a difference. Start loosing things from your soul that you don't want there. For eg, "In the name of Jesus I choose as an act of my will to loose from my soul all pride, all unforgiveness, bitterness......."(fill in whatever you want released from your soul).
In the same way you should bind to your soul whatever you want there (only that which is of God, off course). Also receive for yourself healing, focus........etc in Jesus name. Cancel all assignments against you in Jesus name. I have been doing this daily since the last few months of 2018 and have seen improvements in some areas already. If I don't do the loosing for a few days things start attaching to me all over again. So it is vital you do it daily. Also in the healing area I have already started seeing improvements 2 months back.

Tharseo said:

God is merciful. Do not get yourself into thinking God has left you, because He has not. Nor did He make your heart a stone.

If you find your heart a stone, ask for a new one.

Ezekiel 36:26: "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."

But there is one condition: do you want to remove this heart of stone? How much would you give up to remove it? Sometimes, we do not want to follow God because we want to stick to our own way. And that is where the hardening of the heart comes from. Will you instead seek a wonderful way of living, that Christ is your Lord and you follow his will but never yours? If you truly want this instead of your own will that makes this heart of stone, then God will remove it, for God never takes away things a person does not really want to lose.

I am sorry that I am really not good at giving advices, and I might say something harsh, but you will have to figure out what you choose. Repentence is not only about saying sorry for the sins you have, it is about turning from the old ways and live in the new ways. Deny yourself and obey the truth, look not to your own sin but the beauty of this new lifestyle, that you will find what you hold on to is nothing but rubbish compare to it.

Click to expand...

I have questions about this. When we are first save we confess with our mouth and believe with OUR HEARTS that Jesus is Lord and that he died and was raised in three days (Paraphrased) at that moment I believe that we are given the Holy spirit and God also removes the heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh. I come to believe that this is only ONE TIME that he does this. Because once he gives us that heart we are to renew our minds and guard our hearts so they don't become hardened. He does not give us another heart if he dont guard it (i could be wrong) What do you say?