The Great Promise 2 of 4

The Great Promise Part 2 of 4

Ezekiel 36:26-27

Here's the promise: "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. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgements and do them."

These promises are fulfilled the moment we believe on Jesus for right standing with God.

We've seen that God gave us a new spirit, making us a new creation.

He also promised to remove our hard stony heart.

You may well have heard someone quote Jeremiah 17:9 and tell you that your couldn't trust your heart because it was deceitful and desperately wicked.

That was true of old you, before you were in Christ.

But this part of the promise has two aspects.

Good thing too, or you'd be heartless!

The second aspect of this part of the promise is that He gave you a new heart of flesh.

This does not refer to flesh meaning self effort and worldly ways of responding to life based on senses.

This means a soft malleable heart. A loving heart like God's own heart.

I bet you've noticed this in yourself.

Maybe you became a hugger when you had never been before.
Maybe you started feeling compassion unexpectedly.
Maybe you could no longer bring yourself to judge others like you used to.
Maybe bitterness or even hatred you had harbored seemed to fade away.

Things like this are evidence of your new heart.

So you have a clean, soft, loving new heart. It's not deceitful or wicked--that wouldn't be compatible with the Holy Spirit who lives in you.

You can trust your heart.