Valentines And Hearts
Friday February 12, 2016
Will you be my Valentine? In a couple of days, we will celebrate Valentine’s Day which reminds us of love and hearts joined together in friendship and commitment. Our life in recovery also has something to do with a new heart, union with another, friendship and commitment. God desires to have a deep and satisfying personal relationship with us. God has shared His heart with us, invited us to share our hearts with Him, and generously expressed tenderness and kindness towards us. We’ve often been too busy with our own agenda to give much attention to God’s offer of friendship. We’ve been too focused on wrongs done to us, hurts suffered by us, and painful memories that give us an excuse to continue in the destructive habits of our addiction.
As we approach Valentine’s Day, it’s a wonderful opportunity to think about, and respond to God’s offer of love and friendship. Many cards and gifts with hearts on them are exchanged with friends and loved ones on Valentine’s Day. God is offering to us a beautiful heart -- a healed and forgiven heart, a heart we desperately need to replace our broken and wounded heart.
“I’ll pour pure water over you and scrub you clean. I’ll give you a new heart, put a new spirit in you. I’ll remove the stone heart from your body and replace it with a heart that’s God-willed, not self-willed. I’ll put my Spirit in you and make it possible for you to do what I tell you and live by my commands.” (Ezekiel 36:25-27 MSG)
Without God, our heart truly is as hard as stone. It’s filled with revenge, with hateful anger, with resentment, with bitterness and self-righteous judging. It’s been scarred for too long by broken tapes of hatred and condemnation. There’s no “fixing” that stuff. We actually have to hand over that dead and dried up heart and exchange it for one that is living and soft and real.
God says, “…I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them. I will take away their stony, stubborn heart and give them a tender, responsive heart, so they will obey my decrees and regulations. Then they will truly be my people, and I will be their God.” (Ezekiel 11:19-20 NLT)
If we truly want to live life to the full, we need the new heart God is offering us. We also need to be guided and controlled by God’s gentle Spirit of love and peace.
©2016 Partners in Hope
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