Unveiled Hearts: Romancing the Heart Stone

Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Ezekiel 36:26 NASB

Why would our hearts—the center of our beings where the deepest thoughts, the deepest feelings, the deepest intentions reside, ever be compared to a stone?

Let’s consider some possible reasons.

Stones are cold. Likewise, our hearts are naturally cold and even opposed to the things of God.

Stones are hard. Stones are generally impervious to tools and heating. So is the calloused heart of man against the Word of God.

Stones are dead. They have no ability to feel. Our hearts are dead to God in spite of all attempts to evoke a response.

As a child I sealed my heart by a foolish vow made and kept into adulthood. “I will not allow anyone to hurt my feelings or affect me in any way.” My unspoken promise made to myself for protection—so I believed.

Hearts that are not softened grow harder and harder over time. This is evidenced by the statistic that the majority of people who receive Jesus into their heart do so by the time they are twelve years old. I was twenty. A genuine miracle.

So what hope is there for our cold, hard, and dead hearts? Human efforts avail nothing. Only God in His unmatched power and by His grace is able to soften the hardest of hearts.

Humbling ourselves to the realization of our utter poverty of spirit without God is the first step to receiving a heart of flesh as our heavenly Father draws us to Himself through Jesus.

A soft heart is the best defense against breaking God’s heart. Will we let Him soften ours?

Lord, doing things apart from You hardens my heart and separates me from You. Thank You, Heavenly Father, for sealing me in Your heart.

Karen Sims