I wrote recently of my reluctance to receive the heart transplant that my Heavenly Father is willing and ready to give me. (a heartfelt confession) He knows I desperately need it. He’s just waiting on me to ask for it and make myself available to accept His gift of a new, improved heart. I find God’s promise to me in Ezekiel 36:26,

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

God’s offer has no expiration date – but I think I should take Him up on it soon – before my stony heart becomes too heavy and too hardened, keeping me from truly living. Getting a new heart is like getting a whole new life, which is what my Heavenly Father wants to give me. My new heart of flesh will be like the good soil heart in the parable of the Sower in Luke chapter eight. The good soil heart is soft and broken up and ready to receive the seed, which is the Word of God. A good soil heart is a heart of flesh, soft and penetrable, able to let God and others in, able to love God, able to love other people.

A hardened, stony heart can’t do any of those things – let God in, let His word in, let other people in, care about other people, love them, love God. A hard heart doesn’t feel much pain, but it doesn’t feel much joy either, or much of anything for that matter. That’s no way to go through life, numb and alone. No wonder my Heavenly Father wants to give me and you and everyone a heart transplant. He knows how much each one of us needs the new heart that He wants to give us, a heart that will enable us to experience the abundant life He created us to live and wants to see us live.

King David desired that new heart which he knew only God could give him. In Psalm 51:10 David cried out to God,

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

God doesn’t want to just tidy up my current soiled, rocky heart – no, this is not a clean-up job – nor a renovation. David asks God to create a new heart in him, and that means something brand-new, that means a transplant! God doesn’t just improve upon what we already have, He wants to give us new life with a new heart. This requires creating something from nothing – which just happens to be God’s specialty. Take a look around you at the universe if you have any doubts.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

This new heart that God is giving me has some great perks. One is plenty of room for storing up God’s Living Word.

“I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You.” (Psalm 119:11)

Another is being soft enough to let God’s laws in – in fact, God says, “I will put My laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.” (Hebrews 8:10)

My new, God-given heart will have the ability to obey the command, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart . . .” My old heart is described in Jeremiah 17:9 like this,

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?”

God does. God knows my heart – which is why He knows I need for Him to create a new one in me, just like David asked Him to do. I am ready – ready for a change of heart that only my Heavenly Father can give me. February, heart month, is almost over, so today is the day I will ask,

Lord, create in me a clean heart, a new heart, a good-soil heart, a heart of flesh, a heart that hides Your word within and has Your laws written on it, a heart so broken it has plenty of room for You to fill it with Your presence, and I – I will trust in You with all my heart – with all of my brand new heart!

sincerely, Grace Day