ODB: How To Get A New Heart
February 29, 2012
We need more than a new start— we need a new heart!
READ: Ezekiel 36:26-31
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. —Ezekiel 36:26
A friend who is a heart transplant cardiologist has an appreciation of Ezekiel 36:26 that not many of us can understand. Mike manages the pre-operation and post-operation care for heart-transplant patients. He’s often in the operating room as surgeons remove diseased, discolored hearts and replace them with vibrant, pink “new” donor hearts.
Mike explains that the process for selecting who gets a “new” physical heart is similar to who can get a “new heart” from God (Ezek. 36:26). In both cases, need alone is the criterion.
Ezekiel’s mention of the people of Israel someday getting a “new heart” is a foreshadowing of the change that takes place at salvation. Ephesians 4:24 and 2 Corinthians 5:17 refer to it as “new man” and “new creation.” For the Israelites of Ezekiel’s day and for those of us living today, only one criterion must be met for us to acquire a “transplant.” We must need it. It matters not whether we’re rich or poor, respected or scorned. Citizenship, social status, and ethnicity are inconsequential. If we need a new heart from God, we can have one through faith in Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.
What indicates that need? As sinners, all of us need a new heart. Have you had a spiritual heart transplant?
— Dave Branon
Source: Our Daily Bread
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Among the many facts laid out in the Universe for all to see is the fact that all of us, each and every single human being, have the urgent need to get a heart transplant. No one can escape this fact and no one can afford to neglect this fact forever. The obstacle that stands in the way is the inability to understand and see this need. Another factor that plays a role in delaying the rush to the operating table is the easiness that one develops in relation to one’s heart being a common haunt and den for bad habits and the guilty pleasures of life. Coupled with the inability to see the true state of things, one cannot discern that the reasons for the broken heart and the tears, that so define one’s life, lay in the heart being a habitat for sin and in it not being new. If this is to change then the heart needs to be made new, in likeness to that of Christ and then sin, along with the pestilence that is its entourage, would not feel at home any longer. The struggle to get to the top of the list for receiving a heart transplant in this life is not easy and it’s not cheap either. This is one of the reasons why most people in India and other developing countries take to their early graves the heart that they were born with when in actuality they could have been running around much longer if they had the heart transpalnt they needed. However, Christ offers a health package, a heart transplant, that is in no way cheap but which is FREE and for ALL!