Have you had heart surgery yet?

Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that… “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.”

The Amplified Bible renders that distressing thought this way “The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly perverse and corrupt and severely, mortally sick! Who can know it [perceive, understand, be acquainted with his own heart and mind]?

Most of us read that and give up… defeated before we start. Well… the good news, no, the great news, is that when we are born-again the Master Heart Surgeon does a spot of heart surgery and takes that sick old diseased heart and replaces it with new heart… how can I be certain of that. Ezekiel tells me so: “A new heart 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 give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26

Ezekiel is so insistent that God will do this that he used virtually that same phrase twice… Ezekiel11:19 and the above verse.   

 

Heart surgery is painful; I know that from personal experience, but I also know this from experience, that once on the road to recovery, and full health, it’s worth every moment of pain and anguish.

God replaces our stony and unrepentant heart, a heart that infects our whole system, with a warm heart, complete with new (Godly) passions, purified and refined.   

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.

Luke 6:45 KJV

For this people’s heart has become calloused. They hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them. Matthew 13:15

Jesus longs to heal the sickness within our hearts; the Greek word used for calloused is pachunō (pronounced pakh-oo'-no) and it literally means that the heart has become enlarged, which is what usually happens to a diseased physical heart. Because of the increase in the heart’s size, it is forced to work harder, which ultimately results in an (often) fatal heart attack.

The Bible has a good deal to say about the heart but it rarely speaks of the organ beating in our chest. When the Bible speaks about the heart, it is talking about the attitudes and emotions of people. It speaks of a glad heart, a sad heart, a proud heart, a courageous heart and discouraged heart, a loving and hating heart, a sick and broken heart.

Our spiritual heart is diseased, and as the prophet Ezekiel said, it is not going to be cured by surgery, or artificial valves or bypasses. Spiritual rebirth is not produced with instruments. God said to Ezekiel: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws". 

This is not a repair job. It is heart removal and replacement. It is a heart transplant. Because of God’s love for us, and by His power He takes out the old and puts in the new.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Psalm 51:10