A New Heart
“And I have given to you a new heart, and a new spirit I give in your midst, and I have turned aside the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I have given to you a heart of flesh. And My Spirit I give in your midst, And I have done this, so that in My statutes you walk, And My judgments you keep, and have done them.” Ezekiel 36:26-27 Concordant
Why does God promise His people a new heart by His spirit? It is crystal clear in this passage that it is for the purpose of being enabled to walk in His statutes and keep His judgments. Without this change, brought by Jesus Christ our Lord, Father God knows we cannot. God knows that we cannot walk in His will and His ways, doing more than just talking but actually doing them, without this promised change of heart.
Man’s heart, our carnal mind, will, and emotions, are flesh and therefore can never please God, as the apostle Paul so clearly states. The only way to grow up into the Christ is to have the Lord replace our hearts of stone with His own heart—God’s nature and being, while we learn to rest in His work within us. God is building His house, His dwelling place, His holy habitation, within His people.
We may think that by willing it we can change and there may be a little progress made by our own choices. But oh, what labor it is! How often God allows us to come right up against our own nature in areas in which we, most clearly, cannot change ourselves. Have you had fear that won’t allow peace, bitterness that does not resolve into forgiveness, unbearable burdens that you fail to turn over to God time after time?
But, praise God, He is our change agent! In Romans 7, Paul writes about this very path of human frustration and failure. We want to do God’s will, we desire to be like our Lord, but repeatedly, in some areas, we do the same old fleshly things. Paul eventually cries out:
“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord” Romans 7:24-25a
We can apply rules, plans, programs, laws and traditions to this old flesh, truly desiring to do God’s will, to be like Him, yet typically we do not see lasting change. Only as He does His work within us, changing our hearts into His heart of love, peace, and joy, do we shine forth with His life and presence as we live our lives on this earthly plane. God sees our hearts, knows all about our inner beings and loves us just the same.
We can lay down our earthly efforts to change ourselves—and others— and learn to rest in Him. He promised:
“For it is God who works in you to will and to act on behalf of His good purpose.” Philippians 2:13 Berean
This scripture has become more and more precious to me as I learn how Father God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, works within us. I am coming to realize what I cannot do but He can! We are His tabernacle, wherein He writes His will and His ways upon our innermost being. He knows when our hearts are hardened, He is able to deal with our stubborn resistance, creating within us a heart of flesh.
That God is in control of the hearts of all humans is illustrated throughout the bible, where He hardens the hearts of enemies just as he soften the hearts of His own. Jesus talked about the divided heart, trying to serve God and earthly things such as money. He speaks to us when we say God is in charge of our lives yet live according to what we want, what our desires are. And the Lord is clear that this cannot stand:
“No one can serve two masters: Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Matthew 6:24 Berean
The heart that God is working within us is pure, repenting of our own ways so that our hearts grow in the righteousness, peace, love, and joy of His kingdom. Is this not the way we bring the Kingdom of God to this earth? Jesus taught us to pray that His kingdom would come on earth as is it in heaven. He did not say to live on this earth by drawing from our own resources—-our flesh, our will, our desires—but to live in His kingdom right here on this earth as His nature, His will becoming ours.
We are to tend our own Garden, this life God has given us, by submission to His will and His ways. We learn to worship and praise Him in all things as we guard our hearts through the Holy Spririt. We desire most of all to have a pure heart within our vessel as the tabernacle of God, made ready for the Master’s use. We learn to care for and guard our heart above all that we treasure and protect, for out of it are the issues of life.
Hidden within our being is the garden that must be watched and tended so the holy seed planted there is nurtured, fed and watered by His word and His spirit. It is our inner life rather than all that is seen on the outside, that is critical. We cannot judge the condition within, by what is seen, as it appears many times as either better or worse than what God sees.
We must guard and protect the roots and hidden fibers of our beings, our thoughts, our impulses, our desires. Everyone who would be sons of God must put away everything that is not of God hidden and unseen, more zealously than the faults appearing on the outside, which may be seen by others. These stem from the heart, which only God sees with great clarity, always. We are not to become so busy in working for the Lord, so consumed in righting the errors of others, that we neglect our own hearts, wherein dwells the Christ.
God is more concerned with what we are becoming that what we are saying, doing, or preaching! How is the fruit of our own garden doing? Is our focus so relentlessly external upon the doing that our inner garden is neglected? God continually was redirects us to tend to our own gardens. This lesson requires life-long learning and is profoundly critical: the garden of our own heart that the Lord has directed me to guard and keep.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23 NIV
“Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.” Proverbs 4:23 NKJV
We are to do this, above all else! There is nothing more important, no other priority that God has for us. We are to seek Him with such dedication and thorough passion that the Holy Spirit is recognized as the Guard of our inner being in God. If our heart is right before God, all else falls into place, pleasing the Lord.
Paul states this to the Colossians, powerfully rendered in the Amplified translation:
“So, as God’s own chosen people, who are holy [set apart, sanctified for His purpose] and well-beloved [by God Himself], put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience [which has the power to endure whatever injustice or unpleasantness comes, with good temper]; bearing graciously with one another, and willingly forgiving each other if one has a cause for complaint against another; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so should you forgive.
Beyond all these things put on and wrap yourselves in [unselfish] love, which is the perfect bond of unity [for everything is bound together in agreement when each one seeks the best for others]. Let the peace of Christ [the inner calm of one who walks daily with Him] be the controlling factor in your hearts [deciding and settling questions that arise]. To this peace indeed you were called as members in one body [of believers]. And be thankful [to God always].
Let the [spoken] word of Christ have its home within you [dwelling in your heart and mind--permeating every aspect of your being] as you teach [spiritual things] and admonish and train one another with all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Whatever you do [no matter what it is] in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus [and in dependence on Him], giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” Colossians 3: 12-17 Amplified
We are directed to everything in His name, His nature of Love, Joy, Peace and Righteousness. We know that we are dependent upon Him completely for the ability to do this. In ourselves we cannot, but praise be His name, in the Lord Jesus Christ, we can do all things according to His will. The birth of this new heart is at salvation, upon meeting the Lord and surrendering to His presence within.
The way some teach the Word of God, one would think the most important step after salvation is works, but this is not so! The critical step, the vital, most essential thing to do as a new Christian is to learn of God’s nature and ways so that He can begin to write this on our new heart. The song that says, “They will know we are Christians by our Love” has it right! Here’s what God says about the heart:
“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.” Jeremiah 17:9-10 NIV
The Lord searches every heart, examining what we allow to stay there, and therein lies our reward. Our words and deeds most assuredly flow from what is in our hearts. And—catch this—the most deceitful of anything, for which there is no [human] cure is our hearts! Satan, the enemy of our souls—our mind, will, and emotions—works on the earth realm within our hearts.
Here is an expanded translation of verse 9:
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly perverse and corrupt and severely, mortally sick! Who can know it [perceive, understand, be acquainted with his own heart and mind]?” Jeremiah 17-9-10 AMPC
Our Maker knows we cannot know our own heart and mind unless He reveals it to us by the Holy Spirit. And even more, we cannot change what we do know that misses the mark He has set for us. He is the only Friend Who knows all about is and loves us the same. God knows the end from the beginning. He reasures us over and over that His love has no limit, His grace is not measured out, but fully granted unto us.
Think of it! Our sovereign God is able to change, to turn, the renew and regenerate the hardest, most wicked of hearts into a heart that loves and serves Him! What an amazing, mighty God we serve!This is God’s promised answer for Romans 7. In Him we have the victory over sin and death. In Him, we are given a heart that can be written upon with His righteousness. In Him we can grow up into the full stature of the Christ, so that He is seen in us.
What a marvel He is! What an amazing, mightly God we serve!
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26 Berean
“But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.” Jeremiah 31:33 Berean
“For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put My laws in their minds and inscribe them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.” Hebrews 8::10 Berean
So now, we sincerely and passionately pray as David did:
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Psalms 51:10 Berean
He promised and Heis doing this very thing as we walk and yield to His will and ways. Then we are not self-controlled but God-controlled. All glory and honor to His name!