His heart is steady. He will not be afraid, until he looks in triumph on his adversaries. He has distributed freely. He has given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever. His horn is exalted in honor. (Verses 8-9)
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules. Ezekiel 36 (Italics, mine)
You are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on the tablets of the human heart. 2 Corinthians 3
Hilda's heart was the problem. That's what the doctor proclaimed the day before when the tests revealed that without a transplant, Hilda would soon die. She hadn't expected the news to be so dire. At first the prognosis was that perhaps the relatively minor angioplasty procedure would correct the issue of Hilda's unsteady heart. But the doctor hadn't realized the extent to which her heart was diseased. It was beyond repair. The only way for Hilda to recover would be for someone else to die. A donor match. Another heart where hers was.
Our hearts are the problem. They don't work correctly. Hardened by years of doubt and fear, experience their teachers, our hearts need the clogged arteries surrounding them to be cleaned out. The chambers shut down by years of abuse need a transplant. We are beyond repair. Pulsing through us out of tempo is the thickened blood of our over indulgences and the arrhythmia of our deadly choices. If only our hearts beat in a steady thrumming, pinking our cheeks and quickening our pace. If only we had energy for the everyday of living, much less for the battles that sprout in our paths. And so the Great Physician made a plan. To switch heart for heart. Long before surgeons caught on, God knew what it is we need. Open heart surgery. Nothing short of it will make us whole. There is no other way to gain a heart that is steady.
So what is this surgery all about, anyway? How does God actually give us a transplant? Glad you asked. The Old Covenant was written by the finger of God onto tablets and entrusted to Moses as he went down Mount Sinai, glowing with the presence of God, to give the people of God their rule book, so to speak. All that the Lord commanded was summed up in ten tenets. The first, however, proved to be the one they couldn't seem to get past. "You shall have no other gods before Me." If it was impossible for them to love Him, there was no reason to serve Him alone. There, with the heart again. Generations of stubborn resistance to His benevolent will for His people made God promise in His steadfast love that He would, for their sakes, take them into the operating room of His grace and remove the hearts that were so hard. Replace them with the heart of His Son. Give them a new operating system whereby He actually inhabits them by His Holy Spirit. Then all men and women would have steady hearts, beating in rhythm with His. Our only part in the transition? We have to let Him examine our hearts, submit to the surgery and live. Once the transplant is complete, we have new blood coursing through our veins. New minds supplied to the fullest with the nutrients to live a powerful life, able for the first time to actually live out all that God has for us!
So what's our problem? Back to the heart. The wicked, hardened one. It has a very loud mouth. Yelling at us that it's fine like it is. Doesn't need to change! Can't, even! And others with transplants aren't any better than we stony critters. Why, they sometimes have arrhythmia, too! Some malfunctioning hearts are just too stuck in the drama of being sick. Can't imagine the energy it takes to do the right thing anymore. Don't have what it takes to drag themselves to the Doctor. And, anyway, who says that Doctor is the only One Who can fix the problem? Then there are the hearts that will deny, deny, deny that they are sick. Symptoms may abound, but they will aver they are healthy as horses as they cough and spew from shortness of breath and faint for lack of verve. And all the time, the Great Physician offers the answer for free. He foots--footed--the bill.
Following the transplant Hilda received, she had energy she'd forgotten even existed. Her mind cleared, her pace quickened. But most of all, she was able to accomplish many of the things she'd wanted to do before but hadn't the strength for.
Following our transplants, our hearts should beat to the steady pace of God's love. There it is now! Inside of us! Brand spanking new hearts! The breathing apparatus of the Holy Spirit pushing His pneuma into the molecules of our lives. As Hilda will forever be tied to the surgeon who delicately traded her heart for another, we are tied to our Physician. As Hilda is forever grateful to the one who had to die in order for her to live, so are we forever grateful to the One Whose heart purchased our transformation, saving us from certain death. No longer do we need to fear we are unloved. No longer the trepidation of giving to others lest they don't give back. With the blood of our Physician pumping new life into the arteries of our fleshy hearts, we are free to offer up a life spared from the ravages of the disease that ran rampant when the old heart squeezed its poison into our wizened souls. We are in varying degrees of recovery, we Christians. Some were more damaged by the adversarial ways of the old heart than others. The healing process takes some time, just like Hilda's. But if we follow directions from the Surgeon, take a day at a time and learn from Him, our new hearts will pound in an ever more steady tempo. Our spiritual health will be our glory, our love for God our mainstay, our new life our heritage.
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules. Ezekiel 36 (Italics, mine)
You are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on the tablets of the human heart. 2 Corinthians 3
Hilda's heart was the problem. That's what the doctor proclaimed the day before when the tests revealed that without a transplant, Hilda would soon die. She hadn't expected the news to be so dire. At first the prognosis was that perhaps the relatively minor angioplasty procedure would correct the issue of Hilda's unsteady heart. But the doctor hadn't realized the extent to which her heart was diseased. It was beyond repair. The only way for Hilda to recover would be for someone else to die. A donor match. Another heart where hers was.
Our hearts are the problem. They don't work correctly. Hardened by years of doubt and fear, experience their teachers, our hearts need the clogged arteries surrounding them to be cleaned out. The chambers shut down by years of abuse need a transplant. We are beyond repair. Pulsing through us out of tempo is the thickened blood of our over indulgences and the arrhythmia of our deadly choices. If only our hearts beat in a steady thrumming, pinking our cheeks and quickening our pace. If only we had energy for the everyday of living, much less for the battles that sprout in our paths. And so the Great Physician made a plan. To switch heart for heart. Long before surgeons caught on, God knew what it is we need. Open heart surgery. Nothing short of it will make us whole. There is no other way to gain a heart that is steady.
So what is this surgery all about, anyway? How does God actually give us a transplant? Glad you asked. The Old Covenant was written by the finger of God onto tablets and entrusted to Moses as he went down Mount Sinai, glowing with the presence of God, to give the people of God their rule book, so to speak. All that the Lord commanded was summed up in ten tenets. The first, however, proved to be the one they couldn't seem to get past. "You shall have no other gods before Me." If it was impossible for them to love Him, there was no reason to serve Him alone. There, with the heart again. Generations of stubborn resistance to His benevolent will for His people made God promise in His steadfast love that He would, for their sakes, take them into the operating room of His grace and remove the hearts that were so hard. Replace them with the heart of His Son. Give them a new operating system whereby He actually inhabits them by His Holy Spirit. Then all men and women would have steady hearts, beating in rhythm with His. Our only part in the transition? We have to let Him examine our hearts, submit to the surgery and live. Once the transplant is complete, we have new blood coursing through our veins. New minds supplied to the fullest with the nutrients to live a powerful life, able for the first time to actually live out all that God has for us!
So what's our problem? Back to the heart. The wicked, hardened one. It has a very loud mouth. Yelling at us that it's fine like it is. Doesn't need to change! Can't, even! And others with transplants aren't any better than we stony critters. Why, they sometimes have arrhythmia, too! Some malfunctioning hearts are just too stuck in the drama of being sick. Can't imagine the energy it takes to do the right thing anymore. Don't have what it takes to drag themselves to the Doctor. And, anyway, who says that Doctor is the only One Who can fix the problem? Then there are the hearts that will deny, deny, deny that they are sick. Symptoms may abound, but they will aver they are healthy as horses as they cough and spew from shortness of breath and faint for lack of verve. And all the time, the Great Physician offers the answer for free. He foots--footed--the bill.
Following the transplant Hilda received, she had energy she'd forgotten even existed. Her mind cleared, her pace quickened. But most of all, she was able to accomplish many of the things she'd wanted to do before but hadn't the strength for.
Following our transplants, our hearts should beat to the steady pace of God's love. There it is now! Inside of us! Brand spanking new hearts! The breathing apparatus of the Holy Spirit pushing His pneuma into the molecules of our lives. As Hilda will forever be tied to the surgeon who delicately traded her heart for another, we are tied to our Physician. As Hilda is forever grateful to the one who had to die in order for her to live, so are we forever grateful to the One Whose heart purchased our transformation, saving us from certain death. No longer do we need to fear we are unloved. No longer the trepidation of giving to others lest they don't give back. With the blood of our Physician pumping new life into the arteries of our fleshy hearts, we are free to offer up a life spared from the ravages of the disease that ran rampant when the old heart squeezed its poison into our wizened souls. We are in varying degrees of recovery, we Christians. Some were more damaged by the adversarial ways of the old heart than others. The healing process takes some time, just like Hilda's. But if we follow directions from the Surgeon, take a day at a time and learn from Him, our new hearts will pound in an ever more steady tempo. Our spiritual health will be our glory, our love for God our mainstay, our new life our heritage.
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