Hard hearted (closed or unyielding) people don’t experience God.
They experience only form and formalism.
Their heart must be open to feel and experience.
Fear, embraced pain and unbelief close the channels of life and faith.
Fear constricts. Pain speaks against. Unbelief repels.
Find a person who is cold, and I will show you someone hardened against hope.
Hardened against positive expectation.
Unless the heart opens, it will not receive.
The heart’s hardened soil in the Gospels heard the word but didn’t absorb it, didn’t take it in, couldn’t understand it.

What is the answer? A change of heart. An openness to hope.
I once had a great fear in my life that kept me from what I desired most.
In order to experience what I inwardly I longed for, I had to stop fearing… and start believing.
Is there an area in your heart that you need to open?
What are you seemingly unable to receive? Or unwilling to?
In the Bible Abraham against hope, believed in hope. (Rom. 4:18)
Meaning that against natural odds and personal logic,
he opened himself to expect the normally unbelievable and
receive something otherwise stereotypically inconceivable.

How? He opened His heart and began to hope.
He believed the Word that God spoke to Him.
He saw the picture God painted and refused to let go.

What are you hoping for?

Article by Jon Schauer

“I remembered the great manifestations of the Holy Spirit we used to experience…”
Excerpt from “Following God’s plan for your life”, p. 48 Kenneth E. Hagin)

SOUND FAMILIAR?

Judges 6:13 (KJV)
“…where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? but now the LORD hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.”Gideon felt the same way. Where is the God I’ve heard of since my youth?

The answer may surprise you. Its closer than you think.

Hebrews 12:14 (KJV)
Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:  

What does this verse mean? Does the condition of our heart establish our perceived experience of God?

Brother Hagin goes on to say:
“The move of the Holy Ghost was also much greater and in more consistent demonstration back then than it is today. As I was thinking about this, the Spirit of God said to my spirit, “Yes, and the consecration of My people was greater too.” ‘
(Excerpt from “Following God’s plan for your life”, p. 48 Kenneth E. Hagin)

Consecration = the devoting or setting apart of anything to the worship or service of God.
(From the Bible Dictionary found on dictionary.com)

The outcome of Consecration to God is inseperably tied to Holiness.

As it concerns Gideon in Judges 6, the Lord didn’t attempt to explain the happenings, rather He asked for Gideons obedience to service. As he devoted his life to God’s service, the Lord said:

Judges 6:14 (KJV)
And the LORD looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?

The Lord hasn’t changed His search. Search for what? A willing and obedient person to seperate himself to God’s purpose resulting in an ongoing decision for holiness. 

2nd Chronicles 16:9 (KJV)
For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him…