Our Lord … warned people to “count the cost” before becoming Christians. “Make no mistake,” He says, “if you let Me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other than that.” —C.S. Lewis
A doctor on television was comparing two actual sets of hearts and lungs. One set was full of disease from smoking and too much alcohol. Dark and hardened, you could see the disease and decay… a striking contrast to the soft, pink healthy one next to it. The Bible pulls no punches when it speaks of the dark disease of the heart born in sin:
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)
When we talk about “regeneration,” we are talking about a new birth of our spiritual hearts that is even more radical than the contrast between these two physical hearts. We’re not talking about heart surgery here—we’re not talking about self-improvement. We are talking about a complete transplant of our innermost being. Hundreds of years before Jesus came to the earth, Ezekiel predicted it when he said:
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. (Ezekiel 36:26)
He’s not just fixing your heart or making it a little better. He’s taking your hard heart out, and He’s putting a completely new heart in. One author said it this way, “You will never have a changed life until you experience the ex-changed life.” Regeneration causes a radical resurrection from the dead, a dead spirit coming alive for the first time.
Sure, we have other “issues” we battle (the world, our flesh, and Satan), but inside, where it really matters, God’s regeneration by the Spirit through Jesus has given you a perfect, pure, healthy pink heart!
Great Physician, I have stuff that I need to let go of—external things that are not of You and pull me down. Give me the willingness to surrender those things to You. Give me the wisdom to let You live Your life through me from the inside out—from the new heart You have given me through regeneration. Amen!