Week of February 13, 2000
Melanie H.

"I will give you a new heart
and put a new spirit in you."
Ezekiel 36:26

When I was in High School I had come home one day to find my Mother quite distraught. Mom had explained to me that a very dear friend of the family that had moved to California was going to be the recipient of a Heart Transplant. Many years have past and its still difficult for me to fathom such a thing even in today's technologies, and yet human heart transplants are quite common.

But you know, everybody alive today needs a heart transplant because we were all born with a sinful nature. We have a problem with our hearts. The prophet Jeremiah said "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure" (17:9). We have no hope of curing the sinful heart by our own efforts. The deceitful human heart manifests itself in our everyday relationships from time to time. We all exist with a diseased heart and desperately need a transplant. Fortunately, God promised to give us a new heart and a new spirit.

The writer June Hunt describes it best:

Slowly, after this divine transplant, healing begins and, as promised, your new heart becomes capable of perfect love. Your self-centeredness is now Christ-centeredness. There is healing to replace the hatred; there is balm for the bitterness. You can face the world with a freedom and a future you have never known before. "Create in me a clean heart, O God and renew a steadfast spirit within me" (Psalm 51:10). Once you have a changed heart, you have a changed life. You can love the unlovable, be kind to the unkind, and forgive the unforgivable. All this because you have a new heart -- you have God's heart!

The operation is simple. It's painless. It's free. All you must do is accept it. It's a wonderful gift.

Pray that the Holy Spirit may through the Gospel create a clean heart in you and renew a right spirit within you. Amen.

Contributed by Melanie H.
Published Sunday February 13, 2000
Week 12 of Liturgical Year B