[the Lord said] I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from fall your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and play no famine upon you. I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. (Ezekiel 36: 24-30 ESV).
In September of this year I was scheduled for another heart procedure. Earlier in August both of my cardiologists recommended the procedure in order to remove at least one of the more powerful blood thinners from my regimen of medications. It seems that I had been on them for long enough that the chances of a blood clot or stroke was becoming too high not to address. They recommended the placement of a Watchman device (pictured) to permanently close the Left Atrial Appendage, which is where most of the blood clots form before escaping the heart and causing stroke or embolism. It looks and sounds much scarier than it turned out to be. When I first saw the actual device I was a bit amazed at the size of it. Mine was 22mm in diameter (about the size of a quarter). I thought… “Really? They are going to put that inside my heart!” Well, they did. I am feeling fine and I will get the final clearance on November 1st as to the effectiveness and further prognosis.
Our reading today talks about the “changing of our hearts” (v. 26). 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.” Even today, if someone is merciless, we may say they are “stony-hearted” or “hard-hearted;” or, if they are merciful, we would say they are “tender-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. It is indeed a great miracle! Perhaps you need such a change… turn to Jesus today!