The new heart you didn’t ask for
The New Heart You Didn't Ask For
"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh."
Ezekiel 36:26 (KJV)
Yesterday we sat with repentance.
Metanoia. Going above and beyond your own mind back to the Word of God.
Today we go deeper.
Because changing your mind is one part of the picture.
The other part is what God does inside of you that you'll never see with your eyes.
He gives you a brand new heart.
When I first heard about this new heart, I had it all twisted in my head.
I thought God was going to install something inside me that would make me a better Christian overnight.
Months into my walk, I was still struggling with the same thoughts and wondering what was wrong with me.
I went to my Pastor kind of frustrated.
I said, "I thought God gave me a new heart. So why am I still like this?"
He told me to open my Bible to Ezekiel 36.
He said, "Read it again. This time count how many times God says I will."
So I read it.
I will give you a new heart.
I will put a new spirit within you.
I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh.
I will give you an heart of flesh.
Every single move is His.
The whole transaction is on His hands.
I had been reading this verse for months and somehow I made the new heart about me, about what I was supposed to produce.
Sheesh.
So if God is the one doing all the work, then what is this new heart actually for?
The most dangerous thing about having a stony heart is that it doesn't feel anything from God, and in fact it tries to become God.
Also, because it's stone, it's very difficult to break, and that's why God uses this particular analogy.
Notice how God doesn't try to fix anything.
He removes and replaces that stony heart with something He calls the heart of flesh.
A lot of people read "heart of flesh" and they think it just means to be more loving.
When you look at the original Hebrew word for flesh in Ezekiel 36:26, it's basar, which literally means flesh.
"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not."
Romans 7:18 (KJV)
I questioned.
Why would God want us to have a heart that has nothing good?
Why would He replace our heart with one that can produce no good?
That is the part that wrecked me.
This scripture proved to me, for the very first time, that I was truly wicked.
God wanted me to see that not just by my own standard, but by His standard, I could never be good in His eyes.
I was able to see that I could no longer trust my old heart, because God calls that old heart that thinks it's good, wicked.
It doesn't feel sin and it hardens against correction.
God showed me that there is literally nothing good about me apart from Christ.
The new heart that God gives is the one to distrust the old, wicked heart.
Prior to even knowing about this verse, I thought I had some good in me.
I thought I just needed improvement.
I thought God was supposed to make me feel better, but He showed me that if I lean on my heart, I will actually feel worse.
The biggest unlock for me was realizing that what felt cruel at the time was actually mercy.
I like to think of it like this.
There was a man who was diabetic.
He didn't know it for years.
His body was breaking down on the inside, but he felt okay.
By the time he realized he had diabetes, it was already too late.
By the time he found out, his health had declined rapidly.
What actually saved his life was pain.
His vision got blurry and his body started aching.
That pain forced him to go to the doctor, and the doctor told him what was wrong through the diagnosis.
Although the pain looked like it was bad, it was actually the gift that exposed the disease so that it could be treated.
The heart of flesh is similar in that it feels what the stony heart couldn't.
It recognizes that the old heart can't be trusted.
We are sinners inside and out, not because we act like sinners but because we're born that way.
Make sense?
That may sound harsh, but if you see it from this perspective, it is the most beautiful gift that God has given us.
The new heart makes us realize that the old one is unholy, and that's how we can start to depend on the One who actually is.
When you unlock this type of wisdom, you naturally stop trying to clean yourself up. You stop performing, and you start leaning on God.
That's what Pastor showed me that day.
He said, "Gabe, the new heart isn't there to make you a better version of yourself. It's there to show you the honest version of yourself."
I cried in that moment, because this whole time I was trying to produce good from my wicked stony heart.
The whole time I thought that was the right thing to do in order to grow, but really I was misled by my own heart.
I realized I didn't have to pretend anymore or earn God's favor.
I could just be real with God and say, "Yeah, I'm a mess. You already knew that, and that's why You gave me this new heart."
That day I realized that God gave me a new heart not to try harder, but to prove to me that I could never be trusted to begin with.
And that's why I needed to depend on God.
"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost."
Titus 3:5 (KJV)
According to His mercy.
That's the foundation.
If you've been beating yourself up because a new heart hasn't made you feel like a new person the way you imagined, hear me out.
Knowing all of this, we now know that the old heart will always pull you away from Jesus, while the new heart will pull you away from your old heart back to Jesus.
Here's how we walk this out.
Step 1. Every time the heart of flesh feels something, we need to make sure that it aligns with the cross.
If it doesn't, then we have to run to that cross.
Sometimes you need to preach the gospel back to yourself and remind yourself that your flesh has nothing good in it, but God has received us even though we were this wicked.
He's going to do and change the things that He sees need to be changed.
Step 2. We've got to stop measuring our spiritual life by our fleshly life.
What I mean by that is if you feel clean, you assume you are clean, and that's not the right mindset.
The correct mindset is measuring how quickly we run back to Jesus from the flesh, or after falling in the flesh.
Step 3. We have to constantly remind ourselves that God didn't save us because of our works.
He sent the Savior because none of our works could save us.
As long as I remember this, that is having the heart of flesh.
Nothing good can come out of me.
Everything good comes out of God.
PRAYER:
Father God, thank You for not leaving me with the stone. You could have, and I wouldn't have known the difference. I would have stayed numb, confident in myself, performing my way through life and missing You completely. But You took it out. You replaced it with a heart that feels. And even though that heart shows me things about myself that are hard to look at, I see now what You're doing. You're keeping me close to You and dependent on You. Thank You for the mercy of a heart that knows it needs You. I rest in the truth that You already finished the work, and I receive that today. In Jesus' precious name. Amen.