JANUARY 17, 2020

Selection from 2015

Ezekiel had good stuff to say in Ezekiel 36:23ff...

In fact it is spoken right to us.  "I will vindicate the holiness of My great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst.  Then the nations will know that I am the Lord,' declares the Lord God, 'when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight.'"  Now here is the good part.  How does God prove He is holy?  He wants to make us holy.  Let that sink in.  "I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols, Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  I will put My Spirit within and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances."  

This is how God is for us.  It is in the very character of His holiness to want to make us holy.  Like Father, like son. 

Once we rescued an old wiener dog from the pound.  We named her Sweetie.  But you can't just redeem, adopt a critter until they are fixed first.  When we picked her up from the vet later, she was still covered in tics and fleas.  The poor thing went through surgery dirty and infested.  Hmm.  I'm glad the first thing God does for us is to cleanse us before He "fixes" us.

Wait a minute, doesn't a heart of flesh instead of stone make us vulnerable?  We will be as vulnerable as God's love, a love that was willing to suffer in order to save.  To love is to suffer.  He wants to give us a new heart, a heart filled with His Spirit.  A soft heart is a heart of love with the Holy Spirit pumping through its veins.  

Adam Clarke says about these Scriptures, "Then I will sprinkle clean water upon you--the true cleansing water; the influences of the Holy Spirit typified by water, whose property is to cleanse, whiten, purify, refresh, render healthy and fruitful.  And from all your idols.  False gods, false worship, false opinions, and false hopes.  'A new heart also will I give you.'  I will change the whole of your infected nature; and give you new appetites, new passions; or, at least, the old ones purified and refined.  The heart is generally understood to mean all the affections."  "I will also save you from all your sins."

Finally verse 32, "I am not doing this for your sake, 'declares the Lord God, 'let it be known to you.'"  You see, if God is holy, and He is, then He cannot abide with the unholy, the filthy, the unclean.  If He did, He would no longer be holy.  Yet, it is amazing that He sent His only begotten Son to live among us, to die for us, to take on the whole burden of all our sin so that we can be forgiven and be cleansed and filled by His Spirit.  We cannot imagine what it cost the Holy Father to let go of His Son to do this for us.  No wonder earlier we had that amazing verse, "I am for you." (v. 9)  This is repeated in Psalm 118:6-7, "The Lord is for me; I will not fear; What can man do to me?  The Lord is for me among those who help me..."

John Wesley said in his "A Plain Account of Christian Perfection," concerning the character of a Christian, "'For he is pure in heart,' Love has purified his heart from envy, malice, wrath, and every unkind temper.  It has cleansed him from pride, whereof 'only cometh from contention;' and he hath now put on bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering."