TOPIC: A BRAND-NEW HEART, PART 1
MEMORIZE:
Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you. Hosea 10:12 (KJV)
READ: Ezekiel 36:25-30
25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
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 an heart of flesh.
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.
28 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.
29 I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you.
30 And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen.
MESSAGE:
According to (2 Corinthians 5:17), when a fellow becomes born again, he or she immediately becomes a new creature. In Ezekiel 36:26, God said that He will take away our stony heart and replace it with a heart of flesh. When people give their lives to Jesus Christ, they exchange their stony hearts for hearts of flesh. However, despite this, the world is plagued with many people who claim to be believers, but whose hearts appear not to be different from those of unbelievers.
Sadly, some people who serve as ministers of God also still appear to have hearts like unbelievers. Some of them go as far as not forgiving fellow ministers who have offended them. This is wrong, and it was not so at the inception of the Church. The Bible says that the Church was in one accord (Acts 1:14), and believers were called Christians because they were Christ-like (Acts 11:26). Unfortunately, however, you might find some self-professing Christians today accepting bribes or dancing in nightclubs because they still have stony hearts.
From the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13:1-23, it is very clear that there was nothing wrong with the seeds that were sown. The seeds, which Jesus revealed to be the word of God, were potent, as God's word is always potent. However, despite the potency of the seeds, only a fraction of them yielded a harvest. The reason some of the seeds did not bear fruit was the ground on which they fell, and as Jesus explained, the heart of a fellow in which the word of God is sown is the major determinant of whether the word will bear fruit in his or her life or not.
Beloved, if you are living in sin, or if you allow the circumstances around you to determine how you receive the word of God and how it will operate in you, then you have a stony heart, and God's word will not bear fruit in you. For His word to bear fruit in you, you must repent of any sin that might exist in your life and cry out to Him to wash you clean, transform you, and give you a heart of flesh. God will answer you and make your heart a fertile ground for His word to grow. I pray that you will continually experience the blessings in God's word as you surrender your life completely to Him, in Jesus' name.
PRAYER POINT:
Father, please give me a heart of flesh and let Your word bear fruit in me.
AUTHOR: PASTOR E. A. ADEBOYE
BIBLE READING IN ONE YEAR: JOB 21 - 24
HYMNAL 7 - I AM THINE O LORD
1 I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice,
and it told Thy love to me;
but I long to rise in the arms of faith,
and be closer drawn to Thee.
REFRAIN
Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,
to the cross where Thou hast died;
draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,
to Thy precious, bleeding side.
2 Consecrate me now to Thy service, Lord,
by the pow'r of grace divine;
let my soul look up with a steadfast hope,
and my will be lost in Thine. [Refrain]
3 O, the pure delight of a single hour
that before Thy throne I spend,
when I kneel in prayer, and with Thee, my God,
I commune as friend with friend! [Refrain]
4 There are depths of love that I cannot know
till I cross the narrow sea;
there are heights of joy that I may not reach
till I rest in peace with Thee. [Refrain]
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