DIVINE TRANSFORMATIONS ARE AVAILABLE--GOD CAN FIX YOUR HEART, TRANSFORMING YOUR LIFE & ATTITUDE

Twenty-six hundred years ago God explained the new heart that bears fruit in Ezekiel 36. Turn there with me and see what He says. Ezekiel 36:26-27

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you (that is when God gives us the good heart of Mark 4.8 & 20);

I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh (then God removes the hard, crowded, and shallow hearts);

I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes (then God gives us the power of His Spirit so we can do what God expects);

and you will keep My judgments and do them (that is our responsibility to respond in the fruitfulness that God expects from us).

There is no heart God can’t change. There is no life, past, sin, stain, failure, and habit that God can’t change if you will let Him. Are you letting the Lord change you? Are you responding? Is Jesus Christ controlling you more each day?

One of my favorite illustrations of what God wants to do is the documented change that took place in a generation of people from 1910-1931. To understand what God can do when He changes a heart turn with me now to Galatians 5.19. As I read these verses, I will introduce you to the people of the 8 tribes that C. T. Studd worked among for 21 years. Their biography was written by the Apostle Paul in Galatians 5.16-21

Galatians 5:19-21 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are:

Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness (these headhunting tribes constantly stole women, violated them, and treated them as their own personal livestock – and had done so for generations);

Idolatry, sorcery (the cannibals were lovers of the dark, they were worshipping demons, fearing spirits, and total servants of the Devil and had been for centuries);

Hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath (these tribesmen killed for sport, loved to eat the flesh of their enemies, swore oaths of revenge and hatred, and had no regard for human life);

Selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; (these primitive savages lived to eat, drank themselves drunk, danced naked around the fires to the worship of their spirit masters, and sank in revelry until they passed out to sleep on the ground until daylight.)

I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in times past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

So modern history testifies to what will happen to those who accept the Word. To illustrate that, go back with me to 94 years ago this month and meet a living legend named CT Studd. After serving 15 years in China and 6 in India, he invested his final 21 in the heart of Africa's vast, dark jungles among the fierce, cannibal, head-hunting pygmies.

Once a lean and fit professional athlete, C.T. is now gaunt and emaciated. He is hunched over, halting with each step. But in July 1931, he was surrounded by thousands of glistening black bodies and was wearing banana leaves. The pygmies of the heart of Africa’s jungles have come to hear their beloved Bwana for the last time. He speaks to them only after over two hours of singing the songs he had so lovingly taught them:

“Wounded for me, wounded for me, there on the cross, He was wounded for me, gone my transgressions and now I can sing, all because Jesus was wounded for me!”

There, in front of his cot, sit 5,000 former headhunters.  Once, their bodies were the habitation of dark, foul fiends from the pit – now they are temples of the Living God.  Once, they were naked and grossly immoral lovers of darkness -- now, they are not only clothed in Christ but also modestly clothed in banana leaves.  Once, they lived as a continuation of generations of murderers, years of darkness, and lives of savagery – now, before their beloved father in the faith, they sit in an immense sea of white-toothed smiles.  Once, they were all mortal enemies, never without the weapons of war. But no weapons of war are left, only the bond of love. With faces turned heavenward, these former enemies sit shoulder to shoulder, singing of the sweet by and by and that beautiful shore they will someday see.

The Lord converted and transformed That congregation of saints through the simple, passionate preaching of the truth of God's Word in the Bible. Why have believers all through the ages seen lives transformed by the preaching of the gospel? Because they simply obeyed what Jesus left them and us to do. (WWJ-58; 040725AM)

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