Jesus' Disciples Had Hard Hearts

From Calm To Chaos
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The Bible tells of many who had hard hearts. Zedekiah is an example of one Old Testament king who had a hard heart, “And he also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear an oath by God; but he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord God of Israel.” (2 Chron. 36:13). Moses encountered this with Pharaoh in Exodus when he hardened his heart. The law of Moses permitted divorce because of the “hardness of your hearts”.( Matthew 19:8). Jesus often met those with hard hearts. We know of unbelievers that Jesus taught and did miracles before, that remained unbelievers, because their hearts were hard. A good account of this is in John 12:37-40. “But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him, [38] that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: "Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" [39] Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: [40] "He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, Lest they should see with their eyes, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them." Paul encountered this same thing in Ephesus in Acts 19:8-9, “And he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God. [9] But when some were hardened and did not believe, but spoke evil of the Way before the multitude, he departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.” In teaching the gospel today we meet those who will not hear because they have hardened their hearts. We expect this.
But what we may not expect is to find Christians who have hardened their hearts. If we studied Jesus disciples, we would find that even they, at times, had hardened hearts. We read in Mark 6:52, “ For they had not understood about the loaves, because their heart was hardened.”
In Mark 8:17 we see, “But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, "Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened?”. Yet again in Mark 16:14 we read, “Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen.” Even after the resurrection had taken place, the Apostles allowed worldly thoughts to harden them to the point that they did not believe that Jesus had come forth from the grave. This was serious.
There are many lessons that we can get from this, but the one that stands out is that we really need to be on guard lest we allow our own personal feelings, experiences, and temptations, to harden us to the truth. We need to continue to work and pray that our heart will be soft and receptive to the gospel of Christ. It is easy to look at God’s word and apply it’s lessons to everyone else. It is difficult to see ourselves and change our actions and attitudes.
The writer of Hebrews gave a warning that all of us would do well to heed, “but exhort one another daily, while it is called "Today," lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” (Hebrews 3:13). David Courington