Today the N.T. Wright devotional that I’ve been doing, was looking at Matthew 12. One of the main things he talked about, was the passage where the Pharisees heard what He was doing and said that He must be doing these things by the power of Beelzebul not God.
Jesus responds to them by saying no house can stand if it’s fighting against itself, and that you could say anything you wanted against Him and be forgiven, but to speak blasphemy against the spirit would not be forgiven.
Wright says that it’s not so much that the blasphemy is such a bad sin that it can’t be forgiven. But more that if you are speaking against the spirit, then your heart is not going to be able to accept anything coming from the spirit.
So, when God does come to these people, they have already closed off their hearts to the point that they don’t even see that it is God in front of them. They have completely walled themselves in and cannot be reached by God’s grace and mercy.
That is something I’ve felt in my own life. At times when I’ve turned my back to God, it’s not that He’s gone anywhere.
He’s right there waiting for me to come back to Him.
But it’s that I have hardened my own heart to His words of love and grace.
It’s something that I fight with everyday. To open myself up to hearing His voice and feeling His love.
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