Chapter 92—To Change the Heart
A new heart also 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 I will give
you an heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26
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When Jesus speaks of the new heart, He means the mind, the life, the
whole being. To have a change of heart is to withdraw the affections from
the world, and fasten them upon Christ. To have a new heart is to have a
new mind, new purposes, new motives. What is the sign of a new heart?—a
changed life. There is a daily, hourly dying to selfishness and pride.
The appetites and passions, clamoring for indulgence, trample reason and
conscience underfoot. This is the cruel work of Satan, and he is constantly
putting forth the most determined efforts to strengthen the chains by which
he has bound his victims. Those who have been all their lives indulging
wrong habits do not always realize the necessity of a change.... Let the
conscience be aroused and much is gained. Nothing but the grace of God
can convict and convert the heart; here alone can the slaves of custom obtain
power to break the shackles which bind them. The self-indulgent must be
led to see and feel that a great moral renovation is necessary if they would
meet the claims of the divine law; the soul-temple has been defiled, and God
calls upon them to arouse and strive with all their might to win back the
God-given manhood which has been sacrificed through sinful indulgence.
Oh, what rays of softness and beauty shone forth in the daily life of our
Saviour! What sweetness flowed from His very presence! The same spirit
will be revealed in His children. Those with whom Christ dwells will be
surrounded with a divine atmosphere. Their white robes of purity will be
fragrant with perfume from the garden of the Lord. Their faces will reflect
light from His, brightening the path for stumbling and weary feet.
No man who has the true ideal of what constitutes a perfect character
will fail to manifest the sympathy and tenderness of Christ. The influence
of grace is to soften the heart, to refine and purify the feelings, giving a
heaven-born delicacy and sense of propriety.
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