“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 an heart of flesh. 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”. – Ezekiel 36: 26 & 27
Nothing
ruins a perfectly good Saturday quite like cleaning out the garage. In fact, I cannot think of one time when it
was a pleasant experience. First, if you
are bothering to clean it that must mean it is not neat to begin with. Second, most garages, at least in my
experience, are organized to the point that if you can find whatever you’re
after, without it being a threat to your life, then it’s not yet time to
clean. That is to say, if you can get to
whatever you need, and not die, it’s not time to clean; as long as the garage
meets this criteria…..no need to clean.
So, that being said, when it finally reaches mission critical in there, and
it is time to clean, clean is no fun and it’s a lot to clean.
I
feel like people think Jesus is going to clean up their lives, as we clean our
garages. As if, he is going to go into
their heart and gradually remove one thing at a time. Once complete, he will then sweep the whole
thing out, and put back only what is needed.
Like most of us, with our own garages, this process of cleaning is so
daunting, we usually wait until our situation becomes dire before we
bother. Only, it is hard to pray when
your $15,000 dollar Honda is summersaulting into oncoming traffic, or when you
are gasping for your next breath amiss a sudden heart attack. When it comes to matters of salvation, you don’t
want to be described with words like procrastination and hesitation. Furthermore, some folks are long dead, before
they are dead. By this I mean, you
remain in sin so long, the heart becomes callas and you give up hope. Jesus does not give up hope on you…you give
up hope on him. The scripture says, “For the wages of sin is death.”
(Romans 6:23) Not a whole lot of grey
area in that verse. The garage must be
clean, and praise God that Jesus does not clean out our lives, like we our
garages. He changes one thing, which
changes everything. He changes our
hearts…if we let him. By altering this
one thing, it alters everything. Your
desires define you; they drive you. Where
you go, what you want, and what you choose, it all steams from your desire.
“Out of it (the heart) are all the issues of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)
He takes the old heart and gives you a brand new one. In one simple step, your whole life is
forever altered. Your life can be an
absolute mess, until you say, “there is no way God can fix this.” However, he can, he will, just let him. This is not an impossible task, or a long
drawn out process. It is an immediate,
instantaneous, emancipation.
He
can do a complete overall, through Conversion and Sanctification. If you humble your pride and repent of your
sins committed, he will forgive and make clean, immediately. If you ask God to take away the old stony
heart, that is bent to sin and “prone to wonder.” Then he will give you a heart that is
sanctified to him. He will do it, in a
moment, if you let him. That said, all
the external circumstances are still there.
As I once heard, “if your broke before you go to the alter, you are
going to be broke when you get up from the alter.” Those things are not likely to change, but what
will change is your perspective; your disposition, your heart. He will change one thing, which will change
everything…If you let him.
