A Cure for Hardening of the Hearteries
Heart disease remains the number one cause of death in the United States as plaque in the arteries clogging delicate blood vessels causes heart attack and stroke. In worst case scenarios, heart transplants may be required to fix the situation. Transplants, although becoming more common, are still risky as patients deal with organ rejection and complications from immunosuppressive drugs. Despite the risk, thousands desperately wait for donor hearts. However, to get a donor heart, the donor must die—usually by accident at an early age, providing a heart free from abuse for someone waiting desperately for a miracle.
But is there a cure for a hardened heart—a heart that no longer responds to the appeals of God, one that is no longer moved by grace and feels nothing? Medically the heart may be functioning within acceptable parameters but can still be malfunctioning in God’s terms. What is needed then is a new heart, not a cleansing or refurbishment.
The Bible speaks a great deal about hearts but not in reference to the blood-pumping organ. Over the years we have associated the center of will, decision-making, and choice with the brain, but it used to be the heart. The Lord used this reference even as He commissioned the prophet Isaiah to spread the news.
“The Lord said, ‘Go and tell this people, be ever hearing, but never understanding, be ever seeing, but never perceiving. Make the heart of this people calloused, make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed’” (Isaiah 6:9-1). After years of spiritual coronary disease caused by idolatry and defiant rebellion, the Lord gave His people an attitude adjustment through years of forced exile in Babylon. Earlier, the Lord promised the good He would do for His people when they returned to Him with a change of heart, in repentance, with a godly sorrow for their sin. God includes a heart transplant through this process as recorded in Ezekiel 36:22–32:
- I will take you out of the nations.
- I will gather you and bring you back to your own land.
- I will clean you and wash away the dirt of the idols.
- I will give you a new heart and new spirit.
- I will make it a new heart—one of flesh rather than stone.
- You will follow me in willing obedience.
- You will live in the land.
- I will save you.
- I will make you plentiful—no longer poor and in despair.
- You will remember who you were, and where you came from.
All these good things are from God, for they had done nothing to merit any of these blessings. But the Lord reminds them, “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone” (Ezekiel 36:22).
“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O My people … I will put My Spirit in you, and you will live, … then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it” (Ezekiel 37:11–14). The Almighty is going to create new hearts, replacing the ones diseased from the corrosion of sin purely for the sake of His name “that they have profaned” wherever they have gone.
To profane His name doesn’t mean bad language, but rather making God appear weak, ineffective, or worthless. That is why the Ten Commandments say not to take the Lord’s name in vain. It has nothing to do with curse words but how we worship the Lord, for His name is more than what we call Him. God’s name is not His label but rather the sum of who He is—His nature, character, holiness, mercy, love, grace, and goodness in all He is, does, and plans. But the people have disgraced that name, so God works to protect His Name before people who do not believe.
That is part of the uncomfortable lesson of Malachi, where God tells the priests and religious leaders they have profaned God’s name. They protest they had never used foul or inappropriate language, but God tells them they have profaned His nature and character, His very name, by the way they show their devotion. They were to offer sacrifices regularly for unintentional sin that required constant cleansing. The priests showed how little they valued God by their sacrifices, bringing half dead, flea-bitten animals thinking that God was not worth their best.
The promise of a heart transplant in Ezekiel is echoed in Ephesians: “God chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves (Jesus). In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us” (Ephesians 1:4–8).
I encourage you to choose a new heart and new health in Christ—and continue to watch your cholesterol too.