Written on our hearts

I love reading through the Bible, but there are some places where it can be very tough to get through. I have to admit that when I hit the genealogies I put on my speed reading glasses to blaze through. The major and minor prophets can be another challenging and confusing stretch of scripture. As I am reading through the judgement that Ezekiel is declaring on the people of Israel there is a scripture that pops out to me. That is what is amazing about the Bible, you can be reading along about judgement and then bam you get hit with this scripture that zooms in on the work that God accomplished through Jesus. It is in those moments that you realize that we live in what the patriarchs and the prophets saw coming. The salvation that we have is what angels want to look into.

Here is the verse that hit me.

And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. Ezekiel 11:19-20

Isn’t it beautiful how God will just drop nuggets about our salvation in the midst of these Old Testament scriptures? There are three things I see in these scriptures that speak to what we get the opportunity to live in today.

One heart - God giving man one heart in this context is not the singleness of heart that other parts of the Bible talk about, which means uprightness of heart. The word for one refers to a heart that has singular focus. So what has our heart? What is seated on the throne of our hearts? Jesus gave us two things that indicate where our heart is, where your treasure is and what comes out of your mouth. This leads us to some questions we must ask ourselves. Do we pursue money more than we pursue God? Do we use money as a tool, or do we view money as status? The easiest way to check this is, do we give God the first of our income? He also said that our speech will expose our heart. What do you talk about? Do you allow filthy speech out of your mouth? It’s not just about not cursing it is about the cleaning of the inside of the cup (our hearts). Do the things we have come out of our mouths honor him? When we allow the name of our God to be used as an everyday curse word we treat the King of the universe with disdain and vulgarity. We start cleaning the inside of the cup with making Jesus our singular focus and honoring him with our speech. Our hearts are not big enough for Jesus and our selfish desires.

New spirit - He gives us a new spirit, a spirit that is empowered to walk in his resurrection life. This is what 2 Corinthians 5:17 talks about when it says we are a new creation. What was dead has now passed away and we get the opportunity to live our lives on earth in the new life that Christ purchased for us. We have new motives, motives that desire to please him not ourselves. The new rules that govern our life are no longer about the outward keeping of a set of rules but deal with the thought and intent of our hearts. We have a new speech, our words are no longer full of cursing and death, but they are words of life and power. We have new aims that spring forth from the singleness of heart that we now have focused only on him.

Walk in my statues - I really like this phrase, because to me it is more than just trying not to break rules. To me it is like walking in the midst of his statues or his word. It is the fruit that is produced from the expression of his word through us. It is what 2 Corinthians talks about when it says that the word is written on our hearts. Our obedience flows from this word being written on our hearts. It is what cleans out our hearts of all the dead things. It is what cleanses and purifies our cups, like when Hebrews says that it divides between our soul and spirit, the thought and intent of the heart. Walking in his statues is the expression of the fruit of the Spirit. Obedience flows from the statues now written on our hearts.

Let's walk today with our hearts focused on him, living our life as a new creation and the word of truth written on our hearts!