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When we talk about the heart these days, we're usually on the subject of affairs of the heart ... romantic entanglements and things like that.
Oh yes ... trouble is sometimes too small a word for what can happen there!
It's included of course, but that's not totally what our Verse for the Day in Ezekiel 36 is talking about.
You see, the thing is, when the Bible talks about the heart it refers to our innermost thoughts that define who and what we are, our character and our personailty
Your heart defines you.
And that can be bad news!
You won't have lived long if you don't realise that just going along with the stuff you find in your heart can get you into more than a small spot of bother!
In fact, when Jesus lists the sort of things that come out of a person's heart ... let's just say it's not at all a very pretty picture!
"What comes out of a person is what defiles them.
For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come –
sexual immorality, theft, murder,
adultery, greed, malice, deceit,
lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.
All these evils come from inside and defile a person."
Mark 7:20-21
There's a whole WORLD of pain you don't want, right there!
How do you change a person's heart?
We might think we would be able to restrain or modify a person's outbursts ... or our own ... by tying them up and gagging them.
But unless you change the heart that person isn't going to change.
This is where God's plan of salvation comes in.
It is as if the Old Covenant with its law and regulations demonstrates how it is impossible to change what comes out of a person ... out of their heart ... by just tying them up!
No ... our problem with the things we think, say and do doesn't lie in our lack of restraint but has its roots at the point where these things arise in the first place, in the well-spring of our human hearts.
Ever since the time of Noah and the Flood the Lord has made it clear that the human heart is the source of the human problem:
Genesis 6:5 "the Lord saw that
- the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth.
- Every
- inclination of the
- thoughts of their
- minds was
- only evil
- all the time."
It's a heart problem, it's a total problem, it's a big problem and it's a constant problem, says Genesis 6!
But hang on, now ...
There is heart-changing Hope!
The Good News is that centuries in advance God had a plan to act on this pervasive human problem, and that He did so in the person of Jesus Christ who transforms people through His life, death and resurrection, from the inside out.
How does He transform people?
Well, the problem lies at the core of our being , so that's where He works out the solution. And He does that by transforming ... almost transplanting you could say ... the human heart.
When a person turns from sin tof ollow Christ they put their trust in Him to do this thing for them ... to transform them from the inside out by giving them a NEW heart.
According to oiur Verse for the Day today, our walk with God starts with a profound reorientation of personality that can be described (just as it is here in Ezekiel's prophecy) as a 'heart transplant'
What's 'a heart of stone'?
Well, it's a heart that symbolizes a will that is stubborn and unresponsive to God (see 1 Samuel 25:37).
In fact, in Jewish Rabbinic literature a “stone” was associated with an evil inclination (b. Sukkah 52a)
What's 'a heart of flesh'?
That's, a heart that symbolizes a will that is changed, and is now responsive and obedient to God.
So from WAY back, God planned an innermost 'Heart Transplant'..
But that brings us to the turning point issue ...
The issue of 'Patient Consent'
The power to change hearts and lives comes from the Holy Spirit (John 6:63) through the Word of God (2 Timothy 3:16-17) and is brought about as we spend time in God's presence ... they call it 'prayer' (James 5:16-20)
We can't change our heart nor anybody else's like this, but through the message of Christ and His salvation people CAN be set free from the enslaving power of sin (which explainswhy you keep on doing what you wish you didn't) and that is what Romans 6 is all about!)
Our part according to Hebrews 3 is this ... and bear in mind what's being said here is not being simply said to an individual but to the community of faith ...
"See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.
But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today’, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness."
Hebrews there gets to the core of what is meant by patient consent in this case.
The Point
The heart of the human problem has long been and still remains to be the problem of the human heart.
We feel the pain of situations caused by others' wayward hearts, and both the pain and frustration of situations caused by our own wayward hearts.
But God in sheer mercy and grace has paid a high personal price to deal with this problem ... and stands (as it were) at the end of our hospital bed with a clipboard seeking the patient's consent.
And the Lord Himself stands there not as a long-suffering psychologist, but as a radical heart-transplant surgeon!
The Takeaway
How should I look to the truth of
- the Word of God and
- the power of the Holy Spirit today,
in order to
- help others change and
- to make the change I need to make in my own new, tenderised heart?
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