A New Spirit Within

[God said,] “I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them. I will take away their stony, stubborn heart and give them a tender, responsive heart, so they will obey my decrees and regulations. Then they will truly be my people, and I will be their God.”

Ezekiel 11:19-20

WHERE DOES A loving, tender Christian heart come from? Look around you. While you might not see that many compassionate, caring people out there in our world, that may be because the bad ones stand out so terribly. But those in the church, those Christians who seek to live out God’s truth in their lives, have had their stony, uncaring hearts removed. In their place God has put tender, responsive hearts.

That defines a person such as May, who always seems to have an ear for those who need counsel, are in trouble, or just need a kind word. Or like so many who serve in the church, will “give away the shirt off their backs” when someone has a real need. Many of those people, if you ask them, will tell you they weren’t always that way. But one day they met Jesus and were forever changed. God took out their hard, cold hearts and put in new and compassionate hearts so that they were able to serve, do good, and spend their lives helping others.

A miracle of Christianity is, first, that God even cares, and second, that he makes the effort to change us. But the great truth is that he does. God works in his people not only by encouraging us, teaching us, and leading us, but by actually giving us new spirits and hearts. When we become Christians, a transformation takes place, according to the above verses. God does a miracle in us—he makes us new inside.

His promise is that that’s only the beginning. He gives you that new heart, and then he enables you to live as you should live.