Give Me A New Heart

You can’t do this in your own strength. It’s not about willpower. It’s about a new heart.

Pastor Donny Karpinen

New Things Are Coming

Have you ever been like obsessing over getting into a new car? Researched for weeks, months. Got into it. Then see it all over the road. It was old news in a week.

There’s something about “new things” that just don’t deliver the payoff long term that we want them to.

I remember getting into a new house early in my marriage, and I was so thrilled for the opportunity to have our own place. We were leasing the house, with the intention of buying it from the owner. And let me tell you, we poured our hearts and souls into this house, and our entire savings.

While we were out on tour with our band Cadence, we get a call from the owner, who says we have 30 days to vacate the house. We were exiles.

Living as exiles

There was a time that the nation of Israel was exiled from their land by Babylon, and it is there that the Prophet Ezekiel spoke to God's chosen people an encouragement from God.

“Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh 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. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. I will call for the grain and multiply it, and bring no famine upon you.”

‭‭Ezekiel‬ ‭36‬:‭25‬-‭29 ‭NKJV‬‬

What happened then has happened, is happening, and will happen. It happened for Israel, and they were able to re-inhabit the land It is happening in the sense that God is still making His people new today. It will happen in the sense that in the new heavens and the new earth, after this life, we will be made completely new. Nothing unclean or corrupt or imperfect will ever be able to inherit the New Heavens and New Earth according to Revelations 21:27. But what does God promise Israel?

‘Thus says the Lord God: “On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will also enable you to dwell in the cities, and the ruins shall be rebuilt. The desolate land shall be tilled instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass by. So they will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the wasted, desolate, and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.’ Then the nations which are left all around you shall know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted what was desolate. I, the Lord, have spoken it, and I will do it.”

‭‭Ezekiel‬ ‭36‬:‭33‬-‭36‬ ‭NKJV‬‬