Heart Transplants

READ: JEREMIAH 17:9-10; EZEKIEL 11:19-20; MATTHEW 15:19

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “Just follow your heart!” or “Listen to your heart!” These seem like cheerful, loving sentiments, don’t they? The only problem is, apart from Jesus, our hearts are sinful, and they are definitely not worth following or listening to.

In Jeremiah 17:9, the human heart is described as “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Later, Jesus said that it isn’t what goes into a man that defiles him, but what comes out of a man (Matthew 15:11). And these are not the only verses in the Bible that refer to the heart! Ultimately, some of the meanest and most evil things in the world come out of the human heart. That means we all have a kind of heart trouble because our personalities come from the heart, the center of our being.

Similar to how cardiac surgeons can remove a failing physical heart and replace it with a healthier donor heart, our Lord can give us new hearts through the Holy Spirit. When we come to Him through faith, He gives us new life. We are born again and given a new nature—a heart transplant (2 Corinthians 5:17). The Great Physician replaces our sinful and stony heart with a heart of flesh. He has been performing spiritual heart transplants for a long time, so no case is too complicated for Him! What good news! • Rosemarie Pagano

• What surprised you in today’s reading?

• If you have questions about what it means to have a new heart through Jesus, check out our “Know Jesus” page.

Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 11:19 (NKJV)