A New Heart
Scripture Reading — Ezekiel 36:24-32
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.
In December 1967, a team of doctors led by Christiaan Barnard of South Africa performed the world’s first human heart transplant. The news electrified people around the globe. Since then, countless lives have been saved by heart-transplant operations.
When the Bible talks about a person’s heart, though, it is usually not referring to the organ that pumps blood through the body. For thousands of years the heart has been a symbol of what we call our soul, the center of our being, the seat of our thoughts and emotions, what makes us “us.”
Still today, in everyday conversation, if someone is merciless, we may say they are “stony-hearted” or “hard-hearted.” So we know what God was saying when he promised his people, through the prophet Ezekiel, “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.”
This is the new birth Jesus spoke about when he said, “No one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again” (John 3:3). We receive new birth, new life, through the Spirit of God. Previously our stony hearts were dead toward God, but when his Spirit fills us with new life, we are revived and given a new heart of love for God and all people.
Holy Spirit, you gave life to lifeless clay. Breathe life into us; come and live within us, that we may have new life and salvation in Christ. Amen.
About the author — George Young
George Young, a native New Yorker, worked as a taxi driver in New York City before studying to become a pastor. Then he, his wife Ruth, and their children were missionaries for many years in northeastern Japan. They worked with ministers and believers from the Reformed Church in Japan to spread the good news of salvation in Christ and establish new churches. Now George and Ruth are retired and live in the northeastern United States, nearer to their children and grandchildren.
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