Three Bible passages make it expedient for anyone to hand over his/her OLD STONY HEART to Jesus Christ for a NEW FLESHY HEART:
Jeremiah 17:9- ‘The heart is DECEITFUL above all things, and DESPERATELY WICKED; who can know it?’
Proverbs 4:23- ‘Keep your heart with all diligence, for OUT OF IT springs the issues of life’
Matthew 15:19- ‘For OUT OF THE HEART proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies’
A person’s heart is DESPERATE to oppose the Lord and also destroy that person, people around him/her, and the earth. The heart is CONTRARY by default. It always desires the opposite of what it is instructed. This is what Apostle Paul said in Romans 7:8, ‘But SIN (Stony Heart) living in me taking opportunity by the commandment produced in me all manner of EVIL DESIRES. For apart from the law the sin nature in me was dead’. So Law + Sinful Heart = Sin leading to death. NO ONE can control the heart by self-efforts.
ALL THE ISSUES AND PROBLEMS the world is facing COMES FROM DESPERATE HUMAN HEARTS. We may advance technology in our attempts to solve problems caused by human hearts but there is NO TECHNOLOGY that can tame or TRANSFORM these desperate human hearts. The best we can do is to IMPRISON or MURDER criminals. But for how long will we keep putting people behind bars? For how long will we keep killing criminals? For how long will we continue to use motivational messages to temporarily tame desperate human hearts?
The ONLY ONE who TRANSFORMS the human heart is the LORD JESUS CHRIST. He turns a CONTRARY heart into an OBEDIENT heart that lives a life of love, peace, unity, and joy without struggles. This transformation of the human heart by the Spirit of the Lord is the LIFE-CHANGING PROMISE God had for humanity from eternity long:
Ezekiel 36:26, 27- ‘I will give them a NEW HEART and put a NEW SPIRIT within you; I will take the HEART OF STONE out of you and give you a HEART OF FLESH. I will put My SPIRIT within you and CAUSE you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep my judgments and do them’
This transformation is what is termed BORN AGAIN. By accepting the Lordship of Jesus Christ over your life, you receive a NEW HEART and the HOLY SPIRIT. It is from this moment that your soul and body can rest from the VANITY and FRUSTRATIONS of a desperate heart. He who has been born again has received LIFE because he/she is NO LONGER under a life of stress, frustration, and death caused by the previous stony heart. No matter how RELIGIOUS (eg Islam, JW, Judaism, etc) you want to be, without a new heart, your self-effort is futile. Who told you those who smoke do not know that smoking is destructive? But why can’t they stop? The simple answer is that they lack the RESURRECTION POWER that transforms. The best they can do is to engage in BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION but the stony heart in them will still frustrate them. This is will always be the song of UNREGENERATE (Unborn again) people :
Romans 7:19, 20, 24- ‘For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I PRACTICE. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but SIN (Stony Heart) that dwells in me…O wretched man I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?!’ (Brackets mine)
This is the way forward: one needs the NEW HEART and the SPIRIT OF GOD. The veil of the STONY HEART in removed ONLY in Christ so that a person can be liberated from the DESPERATIONS of the old heart to behold the GLORIOUS LIFE in the Lord Jesus Christ:
2 Corinthians 3:14-17 ‘But their minds were blinded. For until THIS DAY the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament because the veil is taken away IN CHRIST. But even to this day, when the Law is read, a veil lies ON THEIR HEART. Nevertheless, when ONE TURNS TO THE LORD, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and WHERE the Spirit of the Lord is, there is LIBERTY’
