A New Year’s Devotional: “A New Beginning”
Today, we’re entering a brand-new year, and many of us are making resolutions about those things we know we have to do, like losing weight, exercising, eating healthier, and taking our vitamins. We also begin to list out what we need to do spiritually, like reading the Bible and praying every day, using our gifts and talents in God’s service, to be more loving, Christ-like, and obedient to God’s word.
The only problem is that while we resolve to do these things, our resolve soon fades because we really don’t have the power to keep them. And it doesn’t have to do with our will power, but rather because circumstances beyond our control happened.
And so, as we enter this New Year, we need a new beginning, which starts with a new heart and new spirit. This promise is given to us by the Lord through the prophet Ezekiel.
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” (Ezekiel 36:26-27)
A New Heart
The Lord is talking about a heart transplant, but not a physical transplant, but a spiritual one. The heart is more than a bodily organ that pumps life-giving blood to the rest of the body. The heart is symbolic of all that it means to be human.
There are over 5,000 heart transplants done every year, and we are the first generation to understand how a new heart can replace an old one. But what we need is the type of heart the Lord wants us to have.
Having such a new heart will give us the wondrous feeling that somebody else is inside us, Jesus Christ, and how grateful we are because beating inside of us is God’s own heart.
Today, with all that is happening in our world, our hearts are becoming hardened. But God can give us a heart transplant, where He’ll remove our stony heart and give us a heart of flesh, that is, a heart that is open to all God has.
Therefore, let’s begin by asking God to do some cardio-vascular surgery to get our hearts pumping once again with that life giving and life saving blood of Jesus Christ.
But beyond a new heart, God also wants to put a new spirit inside of us.
A New Spirit
God gives us the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of power. In the Old Testament that word for Spirit is “ruach,” which means wind or breath. The Holy Spirit, therefore, is the breath of God.
Some people have a hard time catching their breath. And it’s really hard to do something when we cannot breathe. But God gives us a new spirit, a new breath of life to assist us in our time of need.
Like the new heart, the new spirit begins when we come to faith in Jesus Christ. This is seen when the disciples first encountered the risen Jesus, and it says Jesus breathed on them, that is the very breath of God, the Holy Spirit, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:22)
Just as God breathed into Adam and made him into a living soul, so Jesus breathes into us and makes us into new creations in Him, spiritual beings ready for heaven once this life is over.
A New Beginning
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
We can change! But we cannot change on our own. Change comes from within. That’s what transformation is all about, it’s a change that takes place on the inside. And that’s the beauty of the promise given by God through Ezekiel is that we’ve been given a new heart and a new spirit, that is, God’s word written on our hearts, and the Holy Spirit being placed within us.
And so, as we look to start this New Year, let’s do so by asking God to give to us a heart that is new, a heart that has been cleansed through confession and forgiveness, and then ask the Lord for a renewed spirit through a genuine Holy Spirit revival in our lives and in the life of the church.
