Monday, July 1, 2013

New Heart, New Spirit


 


“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;
 I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
Ezekiel 36:26-27 (NIV)

“I will give you a new heart. . .” God speaks here. He speaks of His children being given a new heart. The LORD promised to give His children more than a revamped or a cleaned up heart but a NEW one.

“. . . and put a new spirit in you . . .” God goes one step further and gives His children a new spirit, a part of Himself. One of the books I am reading this summer, Follow Me, by David Platt gave me something to ponder. Mr. Platt says,” God puts the source of His life in the center of your life.” Think about this-the source of God’s life, His Spirit in our lives.

“ . . I will remove from you your heart of stone. . . .” God  goes into detail and tells His children, then and now, that he figuratively performs surgery on us. He cuts out the bad, the unfeeling heart.

“. . . and give you a heart of flesh.” The Lord God completes the procedure by replacing our hardened hearts with a new, tender heart—a healthy organ.

“ . . . And I will put my Spirit in you. . .” Did you catch it? God will put His Spirit in us. He does this because He loves us. His love is so great He wants each of us to be like Him.

“. . . and move you to follow my decrees. . .” Because God gives us a new heart and His Spirit, we see his decrees as vital, living, and basic to our (lives). When God reveals Himself to us we want to please Him. He tells us “If you love me, you will obey what I command you.” (John 14:15)

“. . . and be careful to keep my laws.” God directs us to exercise care as we try to follow His Commandments. Our world seems to have gotten careless in obeying His laws.

 A perusal of any newspaper will show us the state of our world. In a small town in our county, people moving into a house noticed something had stained the carpet. They called the police. The police discovered over 20 ounces of mercury in the home. This element is toxic and is usually used as an acelerant or in the making of bombs.  

Both our county courthouse and our city building recently received a threat of a ‘chemical’ bomb. The paper reported the chemical to be cyanide. The police traced the phone call to a pay phone in the north part of our city.

               All we can do is pray for our world.

6 comments:

  1. Hi Cecelia! We sure do need tender hearts...'a healthy organ' like you said. So much craziness in the world. We can only hope to put our eyes to Jesus, and ask us to help change what needs to be changed.

    Great break-down of Scripture again :)

    Peace in Christ,
    Ceil

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    Replies
    1. Ceil:
      We never know when God will allow something into our lives that makes us rely on that new tender heart. We should always be ready to show love and grace and mercy to all we meet.

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  2. Oh Cecelia, what a wonderful scripture to meditate on, it goes so well with the post I just finished writing.... yes, about replacing our heart of stone for a heart of flesh.
    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Marja: I can't wait to get over to your blog and read your thoughts. Thank you for stopping by my place.

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  3. This is a very dear passage to me. It's all marked up in my Bible. Makes me happy just to see it again. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rhonda:
      Thank you for your kind thought. When we realize the truth in this passage, we should never have to resort to any behavior that is contrary to God's Will for our lives. (Pointing three fingers back at myself :)).

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