A heart of flesh

This week's verses are Ezekiel 36:24-28

“‘I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries; then I will bring you to your land. I will sprinkle you with pure water, and you will be clean from all your impurities. I will purify you from all your idols. I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you; I will take the initiative, and you will obey my statutes and carefully observe my regulations. Then you will live in the land I gave to your fathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God.

God's pure love brings Israel home. It is for his glory, not theirs. He takes the initiative.

The verses before these are a litany of charges against Israel, and then God saying he will show his glory in fixing things for them. It is him stepping in to fix things that were irreparably broken, not Israel earning some free favor.

God says he will sprinkle them with pure water to clean their impurities. He's not congratulating them for being pure. If they were not impure they would not need to be sprinkled. Nowhere does it say they even asked to be cleansed.

God also says he will purify them from their idols. He is not praising them for their devotion. He is saying they are hooked on idols and that he himself is obligated to tear them away.

 

And then he gives them a heart of flesh. Flesh can feel and be wounded. It is vulnerable. It is alive. Stone is stubborn and unyielding. Stone does not feel. God is not rewarding Israel for their sensitivity to His spirit but acknowledging that they were like dumb inert rocks.

We can be like that too. Have you ever tried to explain something to someone who doesn't want to hear it? You can lay out logic. You can be mean or super nice. You can show them scientific studies, bring in other friends or relatives who have seen the same things, show them cause and effect. They won't see or hear any of it. They have a mind of Teflon. They have a heart of stone.

So God makes it clear that he's changing his people so that they can be sensitive to his word. He's helping them to "get it" when they're doing something wrong. He's enabling them to feel conviction when they've sinned, and to have true humility.

He does this so that they will have the best chance of obeying him. It's not some reward for being faithful. He's fixing them so they can do what they were supposed to do.

We look at the blessing of Israel in the Old Testament, or God's blessing on our lives today, and we assume it's because of some special quality of faith we have. But it is God who takes the initiative. And it's us who are so hopelessly broken and needing to be sorted out by him.

Ask God for a heart of flesh! Ask to be purified of idols, and to be cleansed with his living water. It's only in this way that we can carry out his commandments and be the people he wanted us to be.