Before you truly become a Christian, before you are truly born again, you have a heart that is loaded down with sin.
Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?”
But once you take a good honest look at Calvary and see how much Jesus loves you, and how much God loved you to send his only begotten son to the cross to die for you, you are touched in the heart.
You get a new heart. That is what being born again is all about.
In Ezekiel 26:36 God says, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit will I put within you.”
Before you are born again, you don’t really like God. You may think he is out to get you. You don’t like Christian people. They are all hypocrites. You don’t like to read the Bible. You don’t like to go to church. You like things that are evil. Maybe you like to curse, drink, smoke, do drugs or get involved in whatever the devil, the flesh and the world would offer you.
But when you are truly born again, God gives you a new heart. The new heart that God gives you is a heart of love for God, a heart of love for people, a heart of love for God’s word, a heart of love for God’s church, and a heart of love for that which is righteous, good and pure.
Your new heart is a heart of love for God. Once you really and truly realize how much God loves you, you can’t help but love him back. “We love him because he first loved us.: I John 4:19.
Now you an easily obey the great commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind.” Matthew 22:37.
Your new heart is a heart of love for others. Then you can obey the second great commandment: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Matthew 22:39.
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.” I John 4:7
With this new heart, you can even love your enemies., even as Jesus loved his, and prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” as they drove the nails into his hands. Luke 23:34. He told us to :love kour enemies. Bless them that curse you and do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. Matthew 5:44.
Your new heart is a heart of love for God’s Word. All of the Word of God that David had may have been only the first five books of the Old Testament, known as the books of the law. David said, “O how I love thy law. It is my meditation day and night.” Psalm 119:97
I hope you don’t read the Bible because you think you have to. I hope you read the Bible because you love to read it.
Your new heart is a love for God’s church. I love for people to love to go to church. David said, “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord.” Psalm 122:1.
What a joyous feeling it is to be in God’s house on God’s day. To fellowship with others who love the Lord, to sing His praises, to study His word together, and to hear a powerful sermon from God’s Word.
Your new heart is a heart of love for that which is righteous, holy and pure.
There is a little chorus that goes something like this:
“Things are different now, something happened to me,
when I gave my heart to Jesus.
Things I loved before have passed away,
Things I love far more have come to stay,
Things are different now, something happened to me,
When I gave my heart to him.”
Have you given your heart to Jesus? Has He given you a new heart?