"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." (Ezek. 36:26–27)
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"(Jer. 17:9)
What kind of hearts do we have? Wicked hearts of stone or new hearts of flesh? If we, as believers/followers of Jesus Christ have, in some mysterious way, been reunited with the Spirit of God and been renewed in a spiritual sense, is this statement from the book of Ezekiel true? Does it apply to us now, or is it in some future tense? It seems as though it is true now, though maybe it will become truer in the future, in a more mature and complete way, but to whatever degree it is, the Spirit of God indwells us and enables us to respond to God with love and faith and obedience... so that makes me think that Ezek. 36 is true for today. We have new hearts of gentle flesh. If, indeed, that is true, why do we still sin? Why do we still neglect God? Why do we still operate out of fear and cowardice and complacency and independence? Maybe it is because most churches don't teach us that we have a new heart. Most churches, in my experience, and most christians, for that matter, still operate out of a sense that we are still desperately wicked. And from that, the majority of our lives are spent avoiding sin. To those outside of a relationship with Jesus, Christians just seem like narrow-minded straight-jackets who live lives of fear and safety, trying to simply be as moral and serious as possible. There is a lack of freedom and a lack of joy in my life, that I think, took root as I was continually fed the idea that even though I'm a Christian, I still have a wicked sin nature and all my desires and emotions are still evil and I will spend the rest of my life battling myself. I think that is not true. And from a practical sense, it is severely short-sighted and incomplete. I'm curious, though, why so many people and churches still operate out of the idea that our hearts are still desperately wicked. Is it because it is true? Or is it that we are strongest when we operate out of the new hearts that God has placed within us and the enemy doesn't want us to live that way and spends more of his energy trying to steal, kill and destroy our hearts, so that we stay broken and limping. We're so used to crutches and so afraid of being prideful that we choose to keep limping, just in case running is arrogant or something. I don't know... it just seems like we are missing something and I am finding a curious hope in the idea that our hearts are no longer evil, that Jesus has placed a new spirit, His Spirit, within us...
"For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh...for I do not do the good that I want to do but I practice the evil that I do not want to do..." Rom. 7:13-25
ReplyDelete"For we know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that sin's dominion over the body may be abolished so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin." Rom. 6:6
Michael, your post made me think of these passages. We DO have new life in Christ, but our bodies, corrupted by the Fall, are drawn to sin. There is a tension between the spirit and the flesh. But we have a hope that our bodies will be redeemed too (Rom. 8:11).
Hmm... this will probably end up being another post. I'm curious what about our physical bodies draws us to sin?
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