18 August 2022

The Lord says this:
A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you;
and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
I will put my spirit within you,
and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.
Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors;
and you shall be my people, and I will be your God..
From Ezekiel 36: 23-28 (NRSV)

It is sometimes said that the job of a prophet is to “comfort the afflicted – and to afflict the comfortable”. Ezekiel and the other prophets fulfilled both sides of their ministry. Today, Ezekiel turns to the people who have lost their homeland and are aware that their own hard-heartedness contributed in part to their downfall. God makes a beautiful promise to them – he will not just patch up the hearts that have been turned against him but will take them away entirely, replacing them with a heart of flesh; he will infuse them with his own spirit – and they shall again be God’s people.

• • What does it mean to take away a heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh?
  • What does a heart of flesh enable us to do that a heart of stone would prevent?

Pray today that your heart is of flesh – and that the Spirit of God breathes in and through you.