Heart Surgery

I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 11:19

I’ve been thinking about this verse lately. You see, about four years ago my husband came down with a very serious virus that attacked the lining of his heart. It took more than a year for his doctors to determine a diagnosis, and then months of deciding what course of treatment to follow. During those many months the lining of his heart thickened, hardened, and adhered to the heart muscle, shrinking it to fifty percent of its normal size and working capacity. As he became more and more ill, it was finally determined that our only hope for his survival was to have the lining stripped from his heart slowly and carefully, bit by bit.

His surgeon spent six hours with his beating heart in her hands releasing it from its hardened “stone” shell and making it again a healthy heart of flesh. I call my husband my miracle, and I thank God every day for sparing his life.

We too–each one of us–are walking miracles. 

We have had sin-filled hearts of stone that our Heavenly Father has carefully held in His hands, peeling off layer upon layer of pride, anger, doubt, fear, self-righteousness, sin, etc. He patiently and lovingly changes hardened hearts. In His hands, our hearts become loving hearts filled with faith. Ezekiel 11:20 continues with these words:

Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God.

It is only after the Lord has changed our hearts that we are able to love and obey Him. What an amazing gift we have been given; our Savior Jesus has made changed hearts possible. 

Stop for a moment today and listen to a beating heart. Praise God for the physical miracle of each and every heart beat. Then shout His praises to the heavens that He has taken our hardened hearts of stone and turned them into healthy, loving, faith-filled hearts of flesh, that He is our God and He has made us His people.

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