Thank you for listening to the Ask Pestor John podcast with author and long time pastor

John Piper.

Pestor John, here's a short question for you today and many of the best questions are

brief and it also comes to us anonymously and many of the questions we get are unsigned.

Here it is.

Hello, Pastor John.

Many sins harden our hearts.

We know this.

So what activities will unharden or soften our hearts?

What would you say, Pastor John?

That's a wonderful question to me because I don't think I've ever asked it.

I don't think I've ever put the question to myself that way.

So it's really helpful to think about it and the first thing that happened as I began

to think about it was that I realized there are two kinds of mistakes that I could make

in trying to answer the question.

One would be to assume that hardness of heart implies I can do nothing because a hard,

dead, heart can't do anything of spiritual value.

The other mistake would be to assume that hardness of heart and the deadness that goes

with it really haven't ruined me morally and that I can be the decisive cause of unhardening

my heart.

I think both of those positions would be profound, unbiblical mistakes.

The biblical truth lies in the gospel paradox.

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