Text: Hebrews 3:7-15
Memory text:
“but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” Hebrews‬ ‭3‬:‭13‬ ‭NKJV‬‬
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A man sets an alarm every morning to pray and read the Scripture. At first, he responded immediately. But over time, he began to press “snooze.” One day, he didn’t hear it at all, though it still rang. A lesson! What is not obeyed is eventually forgotten!
“Today, if you will hear His voice, but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” ‭‭(Heb‬ ‭3‬:‭13‬),
Every disobedience is sin, and repeated disobedience leads to the hardiness of the heart. Every time one chooses to turn away from the right path, the heart gradually loses its softness. A hardened heart is unresponsive, resistant, or stubborn toward God’s truth. A hardened heart no longer receives or retains God’s Word. It starts to tune it out, and that leads to spiritual forgetfulness.
A hardened heart rejects correction, so it refuses to learn or remember spiritual truth, even past experiences with Him fade. It leads to rebellion, spiritual dullness, and then to forgetfulness. “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion…” (Heb‬ ‭3‬:‭7‬-‭8‬). Jesus also establishes a correlation between hardened hearts and the lack of understanding with spiritual forgetfulness (Mark 8:7-15).
Growth is necessary to keep memory alive. When a once active brain is kept inactive, amnesia can begin to set in. Likewise, when a person refuses to grow in godly virtues, he regresses spiritually. He chooses to ignore, making him lose awareness of what he once knew (2 Pet 1:5-9). Like the saying, “The mind forgets what the will disobeys.” Thus, spiritual growth is an antidote to spiritual forgetfulness.
When a person constantly disobeys God’s Word, what he once knew becomes unimportant. Such was King Saul. He was so used to disobedience, such that, even after Samuel had confronted him with the sin of rebellion, he still acted as if he didn’t even understand what he had done wrong! His memory had become dull, and he had forgotten the seriousness of God’s commandment (1 Samuel 15:11, 20-21).
Friends, when believers disobey or choose selective obedience, then their hearts begin to harden and become insensitive to conviction. Eventually, the Word fades and forgetfulness sets in them. It is like the saying, “When the feet stop walking in the way, the mind stops remembering the way.”

Prayer points
1. Father, I willingly surrender my heart to You, soften it and make it tender and sensitive to conviction again, in Jesus’ name.
2. Father, pour upon me the Spirit of prompt and complete obedience and let not Your Word fade in me, in Jesus’ name.

Today’s declarations
1. I won’t disobey, select obedience, rationalize or justify disobedience, lest my heart gets hardened, and I forget God’s Word.
2. I am committed to steady spiritual growth and progress so that the Word of God will never lose its value nor fade away in me.