When Hearts Grow Hard: Zechariah 7 Devotional on Listening to God | 7-Step QT

 Are You Listening to God? 🔔

7-Step QT

  1. 🙏 Quiet Time

  2. 📅 October 20, 2025

  3. ✝️ Zechariah 7:1-14

  4. 📖 But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear. They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great anger came from the LORD of hosts (vv. 11-12).

  5. 📝As AI raises concerns about creation defying its creator, we’re reminded that humans were made to glorify and enjoy God. When we ignore His voice and live independently, we miss our true purpose. Scripture calls us to align our lives with God’s will, not resist it. Obedience is our design.

  6. 💬 What does this passage speak to you today?

  7. 🙏 Share below, and let’s encourage one another in prayer!

7-Step QT Notes

1. 🙏 Quiet Time

Pause.
Take a deep breath.
Ask God to soften your heart and help you listen to His voice today.

2. 📅 October 20, 2025

Today’s passage reminds us:
A hardened heart resists God—stay open and obedient.

3. ✝️ Zechariah 7:1–14

God confronts His people for their empty religious rituals and hardened hearts. Though they fasted, their actions were self-centered. They ignored justice, mercy, and compassion. When God spoke through the prophets, they refused to listen, turning away and hardening their hearts like diamonds. As a result, God’s judgment came.

4. 📖 Key Verse

“They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit…” (vv. 11–12)

5. 📝 Reflection

In today’s tech-driven world, we worry about machines ignoring their creators. But what about us? God created us to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. Yet we often live as if we’re autonomous—tuning out His voice, doing life our way.

Zechariah’s warning is clear: when we stop listening to God, our hearts grow hard. Not just resistant, but diamond-hard—impenetrable. That’s not who we’re meant to be.

God doesn’t want empty rituals or surface-level faith. He wants hearts that are soft, open, and obedient. He wants us to live with compassion, justice, and humility.

So today, take a moment to ask: Am I truly listening to God? Are there areas where I’ve tuned Him out? Let’s not be like those who refused to hear. Let’s be people who respond with open hearts and willing hands.

6. 💬 What does this passage speak to you today?

  • Am I going through the motions spiritually, or truly listening to God?
  • Where have I hardened my heart to His voice or correction?
  • What does it look like to live with compassion and obedience today?

7. 🙏 Prayer

Lord, I don’t want a hardened heart.
Help me to hear Your voice and respond with humility.
Soften my spirit and teach me to walk in Your ways.
Let my life reflect Your justice, mercy, and love.
Amen.

Scriptures

📖 1 In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev. 2 Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men to entreat the favor of the LORD, 3 saying to the priests of the house of the LORD of hosts and the prophets, “Should I weep and abstain in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”

4 Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me: 5 “Say to all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted? 6 And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? 7 Were not these the words that the LORD proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, with her cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited?’ ”

8 And the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying, 9 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, 10 do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.” 11 But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear. 12 They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great anger came from the LORD of hosts. 13 “As I called, and they would not hear, so they called, and I would not hear,” says the LORD of hosts, 14 “and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and the pleasant land was made desolate.” (Zech 7:1-14, ESV).

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