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A New Heart, A New Spirit
hillsbororiver:
Eze 11:19 And I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and will give them a heart of flesh:
Eze 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh.
Eze 36:27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgments and do them.
What do these verses mean to you? As with virtually all the Scriptures there is depth and texture and multiple truths contained within a few words.
Notice the "cause you" to walk in God's statutes, no hint of any free will here or anything we can claim to do on our very own. If it is good it comes from Him.
When we first felt that "pull" from the Lord or the "dragging" process did it seem that there was some revolutionary change you were experiencing? I mean did you feel like things were somehow turned upside down, the comfort level we/you had grown accustomed to dissipate?
After coming to the real Good News of the Gospel have you felt more empathy toward others? I know at one time most people I ran across held no real value to me, unless they were a relative, or an old friend or someone who had something I wanted, people were pretty much non entities to me. I know this sounds cold, but it is true.
Even though I always liked animals as I grew into my teens and adulthood I did not hold them in the highest regard either unless of course they were my own pets.
A few years before I "stumbled" onto Bible Truths I started noticing a change in my perception of people, I started to see reasons to empathize with just about everyone I had contact with, for some reason their dashed hopes or realizations and even the successes they enjoyed became important or at least made an impact, I thought I was going soft in the head.
This started even extending to animals, I seemed to become cognizant or sensitive to what the conditions or environment of the cats, dogs, birds, even wild life experience, now I knew I was going soft in the head.
Reading these verses it struck me that the changes in my "stony heart" began a couple years before the Lord blessed me with access to the Spiritual Truths He revealed to Ray, now I can see that at least in my case He began the transformation of my "heart of stone" in preparation for His gift of spiritual eyes as well.
The narrow path we are on is primarily a One on one walk with the Lord, each of our experiences are unique and designed for the very purpose He is creating us for, no two earthly things are exactly the same I am sure the same applies to the spiritual.
His Peace to you,
Joe
YellowStone:
Hi Joe, You have yet again caused me to stop and really think. :)
The Scriptures you posted say a lot and I thought I would comment on them first.
Eze 18:31 Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
Eze 18:32 For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn [yourselves], and live ye.
I see the preceding two verses as a heart being promised unconditionally yet not inevitably. This seems to tie in very well with the following words of Paul.
Phl 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Phl 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of [his] good pleasure.
We must never fall in the trap of assuming once given, never taken away. I think Craig metioned this very well in another thread. God can and will put obstacles in our path; some which we might no be able to conquer, according to his will.
I know what you mean about seeing things differenty upon receiving a new heart. I went through several years of severe dark depression, I realized that no one knew me, I wasn't even sure they could see me. Yet as I groped around in my darkness, I began to discover (as it was revealed) a part of me that I hadn't known before and I began to see things differently. The one thing that was the most impactful for me was learning that I knew no one either. Like, that youg guy driving a brand new car, was he rich or did he use his inheritance because his dad just died. :(
Every event, encounter took on a muititude of possible dimensions. It was like nothing made sense, but then everything made sense. People are more than the moment in which we see or hear them; who knows what pain or tragedy lead them to this point, if indeed any. Quite frankly I learned that I knew nothing and who am I to judge another.
To me, this was prehaps Gods greatest revelation to me, that being that the "I" in who I am was not nearly as important as I previously thought. I like how you mentioned animals and being sensitive to their conditions, I know what you mean. The whole world took on a new form.
Great post Joe, I hope this makes sense :)
Love in Christ,
Darren
bambam:
Joe,
Interesting post! When I started to read bibletruths, my eyes were opened to seeing other people more and more. I don't think I cared as much before hand. I never really thought about the ramifications of hell on the people of this world (except myself-I was terrified to go there!). But, after my own struggle to find the Truth and finding bibletruths, I realize that all people, all of creation is right where God wants it and I marvel.
I see a woman walking down the street looking sad, or a mom trying to deal with her wild kids in the store, or a man sunk down in his car with the music blaring, bopping his head around, and I don't feel sorry for, or pity, or get annoyed by them. My heart leaps for joy at the thought that all is of God! Not for myself, but for those people who I used to pity, and feel sorry for because they didn't probably know Jesus and I was too scared to tell them about Him.
Now I am not as scared to tell people about who He is because there is no Hell. I was always ashamed to tell people about Hell, because of the awful place that it would be, and I had to tell them that they would go there if they did not get saved. I did very little of that in my life that's for sure.
I think I strayed from the subject a bit. ;D Sorry.
Your post just spoke to me, and to think that God is working on EVERYONE at different levels to bring them eventually to the same place is amazing! Truly amazing! Why would people not want this to be the Truth!
Thanks for this post!
Beth
D Student:
WOW!!!
We ALL know that Ray writes some amazing stuff and draws many people to the Site, but
Hillsbororiver and YellowStone do also show alot of DEEP points on the GOOD NEWS...
Some would call them,,, the Next Step Brothers. Or maybe just me... Thanks. ;D
D Student
P.s. And ofcourse GOD is ALL-in-ALL...
Beloved:
Yes these are great scriptures
(Eze 11:19 KJV+)
And I will give5414 them one259 heart,3820 and I will put5414 a new2319 spirit7307 within7130 you; and I will take5493 the stony68 heart3820 out of their flesh,4480, 1320 and will give5414 them a heart3820 of flesh:1320
I noticed that the the second word flesh is a different word
H1320 בּשׂר
bâśâr
baw-sawr'
From H1319; flesh (from its freshness); by extension body, person; also (by euphemism) the pudenda of a man: - body, [fat, lean] flesh [-ed], kin, [man-] kind, + nakedness, self, skin.
He takes the hard (non compassionate self serving, cold )heart out of their flesh and gives them a heart of softness/ nakedness
That is why you walk in HIs statues because you see yourself as you really are.
Naked and helpless . You see that Everything is of God and that every thing is for His Glory.
Beloved
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