Friday, January 20, 2017
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Dr. Christiaan Barnard was a doctor who made medical history. He performed the first successful heart transplant in human history. Since then, the procedure has become much more advanced as a way to extend the life of someone with a failing heart. I've got friends whose lives were radically changed by a heart transplant – an operation from which they recovered in surprisingly short time. I mean, it's pretty amazing to think that a surgeon can literally put a new heart in someone. Of course, heart transplants have been going on since long before Dr. Barnard's historic surgery.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Changing a Heart."
God's been in the business of changing hearts for a long time. If you know a heart that could use some changing right now, start praying for that miracle every day. You need to hear Ezekiel 36:26. It's our word for today from the Word of God, and the Lord explains the miracle of a heart transplant from heaven.
He says, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." So, God turns hard hearts into soft hearts. In Proverbs 21:1, the Bible says, "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord; He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases." One example of that is when the Jews were stuck in captivity in a foreign land, unable to go back to their homeland. But it says, "the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus, king of Persia." And so a pagan king opens the door for God's people to go home.
Our God is a heart-changing God. Recently, Bob came to me at a dinner and he showed me a letter his now 19-year-old daughter wrote when she was just 11. Bob is now a representative for a mission organization. But he said many years before, he was a lost and bitter rancher. He told me he was well on his way to becoming an alcoholic by the age of 15, he was into pornography, and he was ultimately so deep into drugs he thought the only good dose was an overdose. Then he married a Christian girl and he had three daughters, but he went on living for himself. Then he lost his home and 24,000 acres of ranchland that had been passed on to him by his father.
Bob said that on a morning in October, he would never forget, he was a bitter, drug-addicted rancher. What he didn't know was what was going on between his youngest daughter and God. At a camp in July of that same year, she wrote a letter to God. Here's what it said, "My dad isn't a Christian. I can't stand the thought of my dearly beloved Father going to hell and living in torment. Please help me." So, she prayed for her father's heart to change. That day, after two friends had asked him separately, "Why don't you take it to the Lord?' Bob finally got his 11-year-old daughter out of school to show him how he could get to Jesus. He was gloriously reborn that day and instantly transformed.
Our God is a heart-changing God. Why not believe Him to be that for you? Sometimes, God will work through something you say to the person you know, you love, whose heart needs changing. Other times, it's time to be still and just let God work. He'll let you know which time it is.
By the way, if you personally aren't in the market for a heart change, a heart that's become hardened by hurt, by sin, by pain, could I direct you to my Jesus, who said, "I've come to bind up the brokenhearted." Who said that He had "come to carry all your sin to a cross to die for it there." And, you know what's going to make a new you, a new dad, a new mom, a new son, a new daughter, a new husband, a new wife? It's going to be the new you that Jesus makes people. Tell Him, "Jesus, you're in charge from now on. I'm yours."
Go to our website. You'll find out there exactly how to begin your relationship with Him and be sure you do belong to Him. It's ANewStory.com. Maybe your new story can begin there today.
Right now, you might be about to give up hope that your situation will ever change because there's a person in it who seems they will never change. Don't underestimate heaven's Heart Surgeon. He does heart transplants often in answer to our prayers. And I can tell you, the results are miraculous!