Imagine that you are dying. Your heart is failing. It’s failing because of choices you’ve made; bad decisions that can’t be recovered.
You don’t know you’re dying, you don’t know your heart condition until you wake up in the hospital and the doctor explains. “I don’t know how to tell you this”, the doctor somberly says, “You’re dying”. Shocked by this you begin to feel tears streaming down your face. He explains that your heart is failing, you know it was because of personal choices you have made, that were wrong, part of you knew they were but you dismissed them and convinced yourself it wasn’t that bad and now you feel hopeless. You are filled with remorse, fear, and now you’re sobbing. You realize that all of those bad decisions weren’t worth it. You wish you could change it. You don’t want to die. You accept that maybe you deserve it. The doctor empathizes with you. He explains that he was once you and understands how you feel. He surprises you by saying there’s hope, but you have to act quickly because you’re not guaranteed tomorrow. You’re running out of time. He has your full attention now. You feel filled with hope and you can’t believe that there may be a chance at a new life. The doctor said that the operation worked for him and he thinks that it could work for you too. You’re desperate. You don’t want to die. His tone is serious and he wants to make sure you know that if you choose and say yes to new life that things will be different. He emphasizes that this new life could be so beautiful and beyond what you thought life could be. “It won’t be easy,” he says, “those around you might not like you, everything will change, and not everyone will believe your story.” He really wants to make sure you know that if you say YES you are committing yourself to your new life.
You try to comprehend all he’s explaining to you but you’re in a panic and say “YES, YES, I want to live! I’ll do anything!”
Then you lose consciousness.
When you wake you have a sense of peace. The environment is calm. The doctor sees you’re awake and he is beaming!
He was so excited to tell you that the operation went very well and you were given a heart transplant!
You have a NEW heart!
Later you find out that the donor not only gave you His heart but He paid for all of your medical treatment, the heart was a perfect match, and you have essentially been freely given a new life, and the consequences and damage that had been made from your poor decisions have been paid for completely.
You didn’t do anything to deserve it.
You sit there flabbergasted and in tears wondering why anyone would do that for you. Why would someone give up their healthy heart and life for you and on top of that, pay for everything to give you a brand new life. You asked the doctor who would do something so selfless for someone like you!?
The doctor explains that he felt the same way and still does. He said that the heart donor loves you more than you will ever understand. He would do ANYTHING for you. He loves you so much that he died for you. His heart was healthy and He had never made a decision to harm it, it was PERFECT. He wanted nothing more than to give it to YOU. He didn’t want you to die. He wanted to save you. He knew you would’ve died if He didn’t do something.
It turns out that the donor was your Father, the one who brought you into this world. The only heart that would match you, function properly, and give you NEW LIFE.
It was the only way.
You are completely overwhelmed by all of this. Just yesterday you had no idea you were dying and the destructiveness of your decisions were killing you. Once you were told of your condition all you had to do was say YES to a new life that was freely given.
You are free from your past life because you have a new heart. The doctor explains that everything will change. He explains that your new heart desires to be good. If you are tempted to do bad things your new heart will know it’s wrong.
He warns that not everyone will understand or believe that you were freely given a new heart.
Your old friends may not understand you anymore, things will be different, but OH SO BEAUTIFUL. You will find new friends with new and changed hearts just like yours.
You’ll soon find that with your new heart, your Father’s heart, all you will want to do is share about His free gift and you’ll want to share it with everyone!
You don’t understand why you were given a second chance.
You should be dead but you’re more alive than you’ve ever been.
This new life is something you don’t deserve but it is a free gift from your Father who wants the best for you, He always has and always will.
Isn’t the gospel just like this?
I was sitting on a couch at the ministry of HOPEtheopia in Ethiopia
and I was thinking about Jesus and trying to wrap my head around it. I’ll never completely understand and it seems the more I try the more it impacts me and brings tears to my eyes to think about Him and His sacrifice for us.
Now I’m in Rwanda and the story resurfaced and I got to thinking deeper about our hearts and dug into scripture to see what it said.
Ezekiel 36:26-27 (ESV) says: “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”
Repetitively in scripture we see hearts made new through Jesus.
One example is Saul who persecuted Christians and later became Paul who wrote a large portion of the letters in the New Testament.
As a personal testimony there is no doubt my heart has changed completely since I said Yes to Jesus. A prime example was that I used to be chained to alcohol and it was my heart’s greatest desire and now I no longer desire it. My heart changed completely! In turn My LIFE changed because He changed my heart.
The Bible describes the heart of an unbeliever in Matthew 12:34 (ESV) it says “You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”
And in Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV) “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
What about the heart of a believer? Galatians 4:6-7 says, “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”
In Luke 24:32 it says, “They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?””
The word tells us that The Lord searches our hearts. All the way from the Old Testament in Jeremiah 17:9 to the New Testament in Revelation 2:23 (ESV) “ And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works.”
He knows us inside out. He knows the heart behind everything we do. We can’t hide from God.
My challenge to myself and to you is that we should examine our hearts.
With every decision we make, every encounter we have, everything we do,
We should ask ourselves WHY?
Why am I doing this?
•why do I pray?
•why do I read my Bible?
•why do I go to church?
•why do I do the things that I do?
If our hearts aren’t for good then they are for evil.
If our intentions behind our actions and our ways do not reflect Jesus we need to…
PRAY and ask Jesus for Help.
We will make mistakes, but God’s grace is sufficient. The key is relationship.
Can we be best friends with someone we never talk to or spend time with?
The more time we spend with Jesus (through reading the word, praying, worshipping, and just inviting him into our thoughts) the more we will be like Him.
He is the answer and the good news.
This is just a glimpse of what I’ve been learning. I can’t believe that Month 10 is coming to a close already! Rwanda has impacted me greatly and I look forward to sharing more in the future.
Thank you for reading these blogs, it’s encouraging to know that someone somewhere is reading!
(Love you momma! :))
Blessings,
Courtney
