Jeremiah 17:9 & Ezekiel 36:26 - August 22, 2009

Jer 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Eze 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.” NIV

One of the lessons taught through the Scriptures under the old covenant is that “the heart is deceitful above all things.” All men have been bound over to disobedience, overcome by the power of sin. As the Apostle Paul sums up, quoting the Psalms: “There is no one righteous, not even one…” (Ro 3:10). This is because all have turned away, all have followed the pattern set by Adam: “…just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin…in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” (Ro 5:12). Jeremiah puts this reality in fatal terms: “the heart is beyond cure.” Wow. If he were referring to physical wellness alone, the doctor would say “there is nothing more we can do.” Though with consequences in the physical, Jeremiah is going deeper to the source of the problem - he is diagnosing the heart of man.
The heart is the essence of the man or woman, the place from which desires spring forth and are formed, the place from which life patterns are established, and the place from which the will and motivation to execute those desires emerge from. The heart is the place were we can worship God or worship idols. And an idol is simply anything that takes the place of God in our lives.
As we looked at yesterday, the Lord is so good and desires to exercise his kindness on earth. He wants us to worship him and not worship ourselves, creation, or others - not because he is a strict, no-fun, serious God. But because he is the source of all goodness, of all life, of all love, and he wants us to live! We were designed for God and to worship him. Therefore the Lord laments the state that man is in. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God cries out “I gave you everything, why then is there no healing for the wound of my people” (Jer 8:22). He appeals to the people, “turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.” Oh, this is God’s heart for all humanity, let alone the very people he called to be a blessing to the world! As the Lord told Jeremiah’s contemporary Ezekiel, “I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!” (18:32) Oh God wants us to turn to him and live! Yet, how can man turn to God and live when his heart is incurably bent on pursuing a self-serving and destructive course in life? In the midst of God’s wooing, this incurable heart replies, “‘It’s no use. We will continue with our own plans; each of us will follow the stubbornness of his evil heart’” (Jer 18:12).
It is of no use – But for God. But for God! “The LORD looked and was displeased…He saw that there was no one…so his own arm worked salvation…” (Is 59:15-16). In the sending of his own Son, his death for ours, God has wrenched the grasp of idolatry off of humanity. Hallelujah! In Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, and the pouring out of his Spirit – we are given a new heart! This is what Ezekiel is promising in our text above. And this is what Jeremiah saw by faith - God’s New Covenant when God would forgive our sins and “put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts” (Jer 31:33). Hallelujah! We are among the new humanity, whose hearts have been cured! We do have the power, by God’s Spirit, to live the life God has always desired for us. Would you praise the Lord today for curing the incurable and enabling you to overcome and live life to the fullest for God's glory!