How to Keep Your Heart Sensitive to God

Have you heard a truth in Scripture and known it should matter, yet found your attention pulled elsewhere? A sensitive heart notices what God is saying and remembers His faithfulness when a new problem arrives.

In Mark 6, Jesus fed a crowd with a few loaves and fish, then the disciples were astonished when He came to them on the water. Mark says they had not understood the loaves because their hearts were hardened. An earlier post in this series explores how amazement can keep us from recognizing God’s work.

Andrew Wommack connects hardness of heart with the ability to perceive spiritual truth. Jesus later asked the disciples, “Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened?” (Mark 8:17). They had forgotten the two feedings and were focused on the bread they lacked. What God had already done should have helped them recognize what He was doing now. The previous post shows the same pattern in a storm on the lake.

The heart matters because faith comes from the heart. Romans 10:10 says that with the heart a person believes. What we attend to and receive shapes how readily we trust what God says. A person can know the words of Scripture and still have trouble taking them in when the heart has grown insensitive.

Attention to God’s Word trains the heart

On a fire base in Vietnam, where explosions were constant, Andrew once slept through a night of gunfire, grenades, and Claymore mines going off right outside. Yet the creak of his own bunker door woke him instantly. The explosions had become familiar, while the unexpected sound caught his attention.

That contrast shows how repeated attention shapes what we notice. Proverbs 4:20-22 says, “My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart; For they are life to those who find them, And health to all their flesh.” Andrew explains that “attend” means to prick up the ears, like a horse listening and turning toward a sound. God’s Word calls for focused attention: hear it, keep it in view, and let it shape what you recognize.

This kind of attention makes spiritual sensitivity familiar. As Scripture fills your thoughts, God’s words become easier to recognize and receive. Neglect has the opposite effect. A heart can grow accustomed to other voices and less responsive to what God says.

Hearing God’s voice should be familiar

Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27). Hearing God is part of the life Jesus describes for His sheep. People can say they cannot hear God, then readily describe fear, anger, bitterness, or other thoughts that influence them. God is Spirit, and people learn to respond to the voices they give their attention to.

When a person can recognize fear or anger but struggles to receive God’s truth, the condition of the heart matters. A hardened heart is less responsive to God and more accustomed to thoughts that pull attention away from Him. Scripture gives a different direction: attend to God’s words and incline your ear to what He says.

Jesus’ parable of the sower shows why understanding matters. Matthew 13:19 says that when someone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the wicked one comes and takes away what was sown in the heart. The Word is sown, but a lack of understanding leaves it vulnerable to being taken away. When a truth is hard to grasp, keep giving it attention so it can take root in your heart.

The same truth can meet very different responses in one room. Andrew remembers teaching the same material in Bible studies across three states. One evening the message brought visible healing and deliverance, while another group heard the same teaching with little response. Once, a woman sat bouncing with excitement as the person beside her fell asleep. Both groups heard the same teaching, while their responses differed. The heart’s receptiveness affects how the Word is understood and received.

Remember what God has already done

Jesus also asked His disciples, “Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember?” (Mark 8:18). Forgetting is another mark of a hardened heart. The disciples had seen God provide, but when they faced a new problem, they reasoned from what they lacked instead of remembering what they had witnessed.

Andrew remembers March 23, 1968, the day God touched his life. He returns to that memory and praises God for it. Remembering gives him a history of God’s faithfulness to carry into a new problem. Peter wrote to stir believers’ pure minds by way of reminder (2 Peter 3:1). Remembering what God has done brings that history into the present, where it can steady your response to what you face now.

Paul also put present trouble in a larger frame. In 2 Corinthians 4:17-18, he describes affliction as temporary in light of eternal glory and directs believers to look beyond what is seen to what is unseen. Remembering God’s past faithfulness and keeping eternity in view changes the perspective from which a hard circumstance is faced. The trouble is real, but it is not the whole story of your life with God.

That history matters when the next difficulty comes. A person who remembers how God has helped before does not have to treat a new crisis as if nothing has ever happened. The memory of God’s goodness gives hope room to speak while present circumstances are still unfolding. The heart is more able to perceive God’s faithfulness now when it has not forgotten His faithfulness before.

Every believer has areas where the heart can become less responsive to God. That condition can be recognized and reversed by giving attention to His Word and remembering His faithfulness. As Andrew teaches, the heart can become hardened toward the devil instead of hardened toward God.

This post draws from Hardness of Heart, Episode 4 by Andrew Wommack. Watch the full teaching on YouTube.