New Hearts for Old Ezekiel 36:25-27 “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols. And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations” Ezekiel 36:25-27 (NLT). This is my desire, for God to wash me clean and replace my hard, sin-blackened heart with a heart of flesh, a heart filled with a deep, passionate desire to obey Him and Him alone. I love this promise in Ezekiel chapter 36 because it makes one thing abundantly clear: I can’t do it on my own. I have tried many times to change my heart, believing that if I just did the right thing for long enough that I would no longer desire the sinful things of this world; but failure after failure has shown me that I cannot do it on my own. Thankfully, I don’t have to! I have a God Who has promised that He will replace my heart—the one that is stubborn and hard, the one that desires to stray from Him, the one that cries out for the things that will ultimately destroy it—He will replace that heart with a heart that longs only to listen to and obey Him. Here in the Old Testament, God makes it clear that we cannot earn our salvation by doing the right thing because our hearts are filled with the desire for sin; instead, God promises that He will be the author and finisher of our faith. He, and only He, will finish the work He started in us. He will give us a new heart, a tender and responsive heart, and fill us with the Spirit that will lead us down the right path, His path—the path that leads to life eternal. Again, I am amazed at the consistent message throughout the Bible—the message that God will redeem us from our sin-stained lives and make us a new creations. God truly is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow! ~Randy & Trena Reed
Posted on: Sat, 19 Apr 2014 02:30:00 +0000
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