Pentecost 6 Back to Having a Spiritual Heart

[HKHaugan]

As we have already indicated, a spiritual heart is a heart sensitive to the spiritual dimension wherein our relationship with Jesus guides us with His Word.  He is the light that reveals its contents and the bread that sustains us within it.  He brings us into His Kingdom, the Kingdom of the hearts, the Kingdom of God.  He is the gate through which we walk each day and the shepherd who protects us along the way.  He sends His Spirit who makes us one with Him and gives us His eyes to see and His mind to discern in this vast eternal spiritual expanse.

 

What are the specifics of heart restoration?  Ezekiel gives us a clue and Jesus gives us the answer. 

First, Ezekiel.  Ch.37

 ¹ The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. ² He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. ³ He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"
      I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know." ⁴ Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! ⁵ This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. ⁶ I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.' "

 

This world is a dry bones valley, a wilderness of separation from God, where each of us is alone maneuvering for some kind of meaning and significance.  Because of our pre-Jesus separation from God we developed ways of adjusting to the world around us with what the Bible calls strongholds.  They are ideas, concepts and conclusions we make about life apart from God and His Word (2Cor.10:4-5).  They are the products of sin.  These strongholds, and we all have them, have dried up our flesh and bones, the hearts and capacities we were given in Adam. 

 

But we who have accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord are a people who know Jesus.  He is fully aware of the strongholds each of us.  He is working with each of us to replace them by relying totally on Him in all our reactions and that He is making all things new (Rev.21:5).  Here in Ezekiel the Lord promises in vs.5 and 6 He will restore us by His breath (His Spirit) and we will come to life.  He is a continuing sustaining spiritual breath for a Spirit-born heart.  The Lord says it twice to reassure us that it is eternal and not just for this world. 

 

In vs.6 the Lord says He will attach tendons, make flesh and cover us with skin.  Now the tendons of God’s grace, faith and love will tie the spiritually restored dry bones together.  He will grow on these risen bones an identifiable body with the muscles of spiritual gifts enabling us to spiritually relate to one another in grace and truth doing the work God has prepared for us.  We will be identifiable in the Spirit being covered with the skin of His righteousness just as he replaced the skins of fear, pride and hiding with which Adam covered himself apart from God (Gen.3).  And we will bow down knowing it was the work of the Lord through His Spirit.