Day 17
"The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" Jeremiah 17:9 (NIV)
"I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 11:19 (NIV)
How many times we have heard whether from preachers, or teachers, or maybe our parents that we're not good? That we're bad people? Religion is extremely good at reminding us that we are not good enough. And as we saw yesterday, yes, we do fail.
Some have taken Jeremiah's words to be the final say from God about our hearts. "It is deceitful and wicked." I have heard some preachers say that we cannot even know our own hearts…though they seem to believe that they can know ours, and judge us for it. But these folks dismiss the declaration of Ezekiel when they focus on the "wickedness" of our hearts.
God made a promise to us through the prophet that though our hearts may have been wicked at one time, that he was going to provide a way for us so that a change would happen. He would give us a NEW heart.
If you have made Jesus your Savior, if you have placed your trust and faith in him, he has removed your sin as far as the east is from the west and placed a new heart, a new spirit, in you. The past is gone and the new is here.
"Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." John 14:23 (NIV)
The enemy of our souls will come to us and lie, telling us that we are deceitfully wicked, that this is our nature now, but this is not true.
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)
We are not merely "fixed" people, but rather, we have become whole new creations. We are re-created and our hearts are no longer hearts of stone, but that of flesh and soft and pliable in the hands of God, quick to respond to his leading.
Prayer: "Father, thank you for making me into a new creation. Thank you that I can know my heart is new and free. Thank you for changing my life. Amen."
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