The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Can a Hardened Heart Be Healed?

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

Could your heart be growing hard without you even realizing it? Jeff explores the biblical meaning of a hardened heart, revealing how sin, pride, disappointment, and apathy can slowly diminish our ability to hear God's voice and respond to His grace. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit https://media.ascensionpress.com/?s=&page=2&category%5B0%5D=Ascension%20Podcasts&category%5B1%5D=The%20Jeff%20Cavins%20Show for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together and living as activated disciples. This is show 488. Can heart disease be reversed? Welcome to the show, my friend. Hey, it's good to be with you this week, praying for you, thinking about you during the week, and I hope you are doing very, very well. You know, today we're going to talk about a topic that is in the news a lot, but it deals with physical hearts, of course, heart disease that is going around the world due to diet and lack of exercise, stress and genetics, the whole thing, right? But the Bible also talks about a heart disease, a hardening of the heart. And I want to talk about that today and take a look at it, but I'm really interested.

can it be reversed? Can you have a reversal of a hardened heart? And I think you know the answer. Of course you can. But how do we get ourselves into this? And how do we get ourselves out of it? That's what I want to go into today. And by the way, if you do want the show notes, which I have several scriptures, absolutely free, all you got to do is text Jeff Kaven's at the number 3377. And make Jeff Kaven's one word. And we'll book the notes for you. So do you have anybody in your family who has struggled with heart disease? I mean, physically, heart disease.

I come from a family where on my dad's side, there was quite a history of it. And naturally, that was something that I needed to take into serious consideration when I was in my 20s to how am I going to live? Am I going to exercise? I'm going to eat differently. What about stress levels and in all of that? And I remember in my 20s, it kind of preoccupied my thinking because I was a little bit afraid that what would happen to me would be what had happened to my dad. And that was he ended up with heart disease at a pretty young age.

And so that was always on my mind, you know. But there's also the whole aspect of my spiritual heart, the very center of my being, the place where I meet with God, the place where decision. are made, the place where I'm really living from, and that is my heart. Is my heart in good shape spiritually, or is my heart hardened? Am I not meeting with the Lord in the heart? Our decision's not made there. It's like a vacant room that becomes filled with spider webs and moss, and, you know,

it's not what it's supposed to be. and that can really be a problem. So as we get going on this today, I'd like you to think about your own spiritual heart. We want to talk about your physical heart, go to your doctor. If you want to talk about your spiritual heart, you need to go to God and ask, where are you at? Let me lay down a foundation here of some scriptures in the Old Testament

that talk and some in the new that talk about a hardened heart. And we'll look at that and then explain what that means. one of the first instances that we see this issue of a hardened heart is Exodus 421. The Lord said to Moses, when you go back to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Now, that's an interesting point, isn't it? And it sounds a bit odd. I will harden his heart.

Now, to explain that, I'd like to turn to a book that I wrote with Dr. Tim Gray. It's available at Ascension, walking with God, a journey through the Bible, where we go through the entire Bible in chronological order in written form. And it's different than the Great Adventure. Oh, yeah, it has the same types of events, of course, but it's a different perspective on it. The two go hand in hand. And it says on page 71, 20 times in the opening chapters of Exodus,

we are told of Pharaoh's hardening heart. Ten times God hardens Pharaoh's heart. Ten times it is Pharaoh himself. The Hebrew word translated harden is Kavid, to make heavy. To make heavy. And a heavy heart had a particular significance for ancient Egyptians. Among the tombs and temples in ancient Egypt, it was common to find inscriptions, depicting the final judgment of the dead as carried out by the weighing of a person's heart

on a scale. Each heart was weighed against a feather representing truth and justice. If someone's heart was heavy, that person was condemned. In the Exodus narrative, Pharaoh's heart is being weighed against the scales of truth, and justice. Each time he refuses to follow God's command and acts against God in justice, well, his heart becomes heavier. And God is making Pharaoh's heart heavy in as much as he gives a just command that Pharaoh refuses to follow. In the end, the heaviness of Pharaoh's heart will condemn him, not because God forced him to have a hardened heart, but because he was found wanting in his response to the demands of justice and truth.

I might want to pick that book up. It's really a good look at the entire Bible in book form in learning all about these various stories. And so what we see in Exodus 424 is that God is not imposing a hard heart on Pharaoh, you know, saying, well, we had to have this Exodus story and we had to have a Pharaoh and he had to, well, he had to be a bad guy. And so I made you that one. No, that's not what it's saying. saying that his heart is hardened insofar as his response to truth and justice. And that can happen to us as well. It really can.

Now, this happened several other times in the Bible. Like in Deuteronomy 230, Sihon, the king of Heshbon, was not willing for us to pass through his land. This is what Moses is saying. For the Lord, your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate. in order to deliver him into your hand as he is today. And again, this is not God imposing an obstinate heart.

The obstinate heart is in response to truth and justice. You respond poorly, disobedient, you have a stiff neck. Well, your heart gets hardened. Jeremiah 1612, you two have done evil even more than your forefathers. For behold, you are each one walking according to the stubbornness of his own. evil heart without listening to me. And I really like this one, Jeremiah 1912, but they will reply, it's no use, we will continue with our own plans. Each of us will follow the stubbornness of his evil heart. Isn't that something? And so there's a pattern in the Old Testament that people develop a

hardened heart because they, well, they continue with their own plans. And they walk according to the stubbornness of their own evil heart. In the New Testament, in Matthew 15, Jesus says, for the heart of this people has become dull. With their ears, they scarcely hear, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise, they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears,

and understand with their heart and return. And I would heal them. You see, a hardened heart, and as I'm explaining this to you today, search your heart, ask yourself about your own heart. Don't listen for your sister. Don't listen for your brother. Don't listen for your cousin.

Don't listen for your friends. Listen for your own heart. A hardened heart weakens a person's ability to perceive and to hear and to understand and to remember. And Jesus warns his disciples about this, doesn't he? He warns them about. having a stubborn heart which will weaken your ability to perceive, even to perceive accurately what's happening around you, at home, at work, decisions you make, the way you think about yourself. It weakens a person's ability to perceive to even hear God and certainly to understand

the Lord's will and what he is saying. And you can see this very easily in Mark chapter eight. I'm going to put these in the notes for you. Mark chapter eight, 17 through 19. It says, aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them, why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see and ears but fail to hear? And don't you remember? When I broke the five loaves and the five thousand were fed, how many basket full of pieces did you pick up? So he's trying to get them to think, and he interjects this idea,

are your hearts hardened? Do you perceive? Do you hear? Do you understand? Do you remember? And these are the signs of a possible spiritual heart disease condition. Now, you're getting older and you just start forgetting some things. Don't be too hard on yourself,

but you know yourself. You know, maybe at one time in your life you were quite perceptible. You know, you could perceive things quite well. You could hear and you understand. And you didn't have a problem remembering what the Lord was saying to us in His Word. But because of insisting on your own ways or walking in your own plans in stubbornness and lack of tension to God's Word, your heart may have actually changed. Now Paul spells out the recipe for a hardened heart. You want to read this on your own.

It's Romans 1, 18 through 24, but I'm going to read it to you rather quickly here today because it is really, really something. He's given you the recipe for a hardened heart. He says this to the Romans. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness since what may be known about God. is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities,

His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools. And exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man,

birds, animals, reptiles. Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. There's quite a recipe there, you know, Romans chapter one. So let's take a break. I want to come back on the other side of this break, let's get into some of the aspects of what leads to a hardened heart and the reversal of it.

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Our hope at Ascension is that Invited will help make OCIA in your parish what it was always meant to be, a true journey into life with Christ. To learn more, visit ascensionpress.com slash invited. Welcome back. Here I am with you once again. We're talking today about can heart disease be reversed as I teach the scripture today with my beautiful little white cup of green tea. They say it's good for the heart. Goes after those free radicals. Has a thianin, has a little bit of caffeine. Okay, so what leads to a hardened heart? Well, number one is the biggie, right?

Sin. Sin leads to a hardened heart. When we get involved in sin and we don't repent, our hearts grow harder until we can't hear God at all and we don't see sin as sin any longer you know the scripture talks about the condition here and that is that when good becomes evil and evil becomes good a complete reversal of reality and truth you know what this is This is spiritual arterial sclerosis is what it is right there. Sin blocks the life of God.

Vinyl sin for sure weakens those spiritual arterial sclerosis conditions. But mortal sin cuts off the life. It's a heart attack, you know? Mortal sin is like a heart attack. Vinyl sin, watch it. Let's try to reverse that. So sin leads to a hardened heart. It either weakens a relationship with God or it breaks it off completely.

Now there's another topic here that leads to a hardened heart, and it's really at the root of Pharaoh's problem, as I read earlier, and that is pride. Pride leads to a hardened heart. So what is pride? Well, pride is an inaccurate assessment of who you are in relationship to God, and who you are in relationship to others in the kingdom of God. If you live your life thinking that you are God or that God is your spiritual advisor but not king, you can end up with a hardened heart.

And if you and I and our relationships with our friends think we're all that in a bag of chips and that we're better than people, it leads to a hardened heart. because it's not truth. It's not justice. It's not holiness. It isn't the fruit of the spirit. The fruit of the spirit is actually where we're going with this. Number three, great disappointment can lead to a hardened heart.

You know, I know somebody, I met them quite a few years ago, and a tragedy took place in their life, and they lost a family member. And prior to losing this beautiful family member, this individual had a very, very sensitive and very sweet relationship with the Lord, very innocent, hardworking. And when their loved one was taken quite suddenly, something happened in them. Great disappointment actually started to harden their heart to the point. where they didn't want to go to church anymore. They started mocking preachers.

They started to not think the best of other people's motives. And it all started with a great disappointment. You know, disappointment and suffering can lead you to God, as Pope John Paul II often said, and it can also push you away from God. because your disappointment in the fact that you lost the loved one is tagged to God. Maybe you are hurt and crushed, but don't turn to the Lord in that pain. If you don't turn to the Lord in that pain, as it says in Matthew 1128,

come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I'll give you rest. If you don't do that, instead, what do you do? You've got to take care of it, don't you? You've got to take care of that disappointment. So you self-medicate. or blame God or self-medicate and blame God or others. And it really starts a spiral into spiritual heart disease. The fourth one is apathy, apathy and the cares of the world.

Remember the parable that Jesus taught about planting the seed, the sower in the seed? and one of the bits of soil that the sower was sowing into would not receive the seed. And so apathy in the cares of the world like the seed planted, but the cares of the world, Jesus said in that story, the cares of the world killed it. Apathy is not caring. Apathy is kind of like in terms. indifference in a way. And sometimes, you know, we talk about what's the opposite of love,

it's hate. No, it's not. It's indifference. It's indifference. And apathy is the twin brother of that. And that can have a major impact on your heart. You go in to get your physical heart looked at. What is the doctor going to ask you? Tell me about your exercise. You know, I just, I sit on the couch, eat data chips, and watch Netflix. and over and over and over. And then he shows you a scan of your arteries and says, and that is the result right there. You do that spiritually, it's more serious.

In fact, everything I'm talking about here, spiritually, it's more serious than the physical aspect. We have great doctors in the world that can do bypasses and all kinds of other things for the physical heart. But I don't know of anybody that I can go to. that can reverse the heart disease, spiritual heart disease other than Jesus. Psalm 139 said,

Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. This is so beautiful. And there's another one too. I got to share this one with you.

I'm just going to throw it in the bin for you. Psalm 119. How can a young man keep his way pure? by living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart. Do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

I think we have one of the answers right there as to what can we do if we suspect spiritual heart disease. One, get the medicine in there. What is the medicine? In this case, it's the word of God. Get the word of God. hide the word of God in those spiritual arteries in your spiritual chambers of your heart hide his word inside of you now if you have a hard heart and you suspect you have a hard heart

admit it and turn to the Lord and the first thing I would say is go to confession that's right go to confession and be honest about it and say, I'm not perceiving the way that I should. And I'm not understanding. I'm not hearing the way I should. And I want this reversed. So go to confession, make a very good confession and confess all of it. It's the things you've done.

It's your attitude. It's the habits that you have developed in your life that are detrimental to your heart. And so there's really, you know, three things that I could say do for your spiritual heart that are the things that the doctor will tell you about your physical heart. Okay? I'll give you all three of them and I'll put them in the notes for you. Number one, eat well. Well, are you saying, Jeff, if I have arugula and spinach and fruit and I take 1,800 different supplements?

Are you saying that this is going to reverse? No. I'm talking about eat well spiritually. The Eucharist and the Word of God. Eat it. Consume it. Meditate on it. Let your heart marinate in the graces of the Eucharist.

The graces of the sacraments. The graces of the Word of God. Literally, jump in, bathe, marinate, soak in that. That's the medicine. Eat well. You go to the doctor with heart disease. He says, you need to change your diet and you go back home. You don't change a thing.

Nothing changes. Don't do that with confession. They went to confession. It's a new day. Listen, I'm getting this on the way home from that fast food restaurant. Yes, biggie size a thank you. I always go back to confession, you know. And then number two, what does the doctor tell you?

that you need to deal with the stress and the cares in your life. Peter said, cast your cares upon the Lord for the Lord cares for you. And Jesus said in Matthew 1128, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, I'll give you rest. So you need to give your stress

and your cares to the Lord. I'm a firm believer that if we don't deal with the stress and the cares in our life, your spiritual heart will reveal it, just like your physical heart does. First the physical, then the spiritual. Hmm. Kind of a little theme Paul uses a lot.

Number three, you know what it is. Hello, couch potato. Get some exercise. Okay, now that's kind of, of a funny one. How do we do that? What do I do? Do I go home and take up rosary and start, you know, doing hand lifts with my rosary in my hand, like it's a weight or something like that? Do I get a copy of the New Testament, put it in my back pocket and go for a run? What do you mean, Jeff? Get exercise. Well, the exercise in the kingdom of God is do the word of God and do the will of God in your life.

Same thing. Word and will. Do the will of God in your life. So that's what you need to do. And so you need to eat well, you need to deal with the stress and the cares in your life, and you need to get exercise. Do the word of God. If you have a hardened heart, maybe it's partially hardened. Maybe it's just with your spouse. Maybe it's your children.

Maybe it's your boss. Well, that part of your heart needs healing just as much as a complete hardening. of the heart. So before you tackle that, go to confession and then say, I'm going to eat well, I'm going to give my cares to Jesus, and I'm going to get exercise. And I can't wait to hear what happens in your life. So let's pray for you right now that God would move in your heart. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord Jesus, I lift up my friend to you. And I ask you, Lord, right now, to touch their heart in a powerful way. I think Thank you for the power of the spirit of God who is living inside of them.

I pray that they would not grieve the Holy Spirit by being obstinate, by saying, no, I'll do it my way. But they would be yielding generous. I thank you, Lord Jesus, for doing this work in their heart and reversing the spiritual heart disease in their life. Give them a courage to go to confession and the wisdom to eat well. and the tenacity to keep coming back to you with our cares and that persistence in getting exercise, spiritual exercise. We pray all this in your mighty name, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Father, son, in the Holy Spirit. Love you. Look forward to talking to you next week.