THE FAMILY ALTAR
June 6.
"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put
within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your
flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put My
Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye
shall keep My judgments and do them". Ezek. 36:26. 27.
Blessed "I will" of our merciful God and Father in heaven !
Five times He says : "I will," in order to teach us how earnestly
He desires our conversion and salvation. By nature we were all
dead in trespasses and sins. We had a stony heart that remained
hard and unimpressed when hearing the fiery threatenings of His
condemning Law or the sweetest invitations of His pardoning
Gospel. Nay, more ! We had a carnally minded heart that could
only oppose and resist God's good and gracious will regarding
our conversion and salvation. (Eom. 8,7.) Not one of us has
willed or could will his conversion. Whoever says that the un-
converted sinner can convert himself or assist in any way in being
converted had better ask God to open the eyes of his understanding
for our text. For here we learn that it is God, and not we, who
gives us a new heart in place of our old sin-corrupted heart. It is
God, and not we, who gives us a heart of "flesh," that is, a sus-
ceptible heart, instead of our stony heart. It is God, and not we,
who gives us His Holy Spirit that now dwells in us, and keeps
us in faith, contends against the evil desires of our flesh, excites
us to lead a holy life, to love God and our fellow-men, in a word,'
to show ourselves true Christians. Our conversion and salvation,
then, is alone and altogether the gracious and unmerited work
of our merciful God and Father in heaven, reconciled to us lost
sinners through the saving merit of our Lord Jesus Christ. To
Him be all glory in this world and in the world to come. Come
to us, 0 Holy Spirit; for
"lis Thine to cleanse the heart,
To sanctify the soul,
To pour fresh life on every part,
And new-create the whole.
Dwell, therefore, in our hearts;
Our minds from bondage free:
Then shall we know, and praise, and love
The Father, Son, and Thee.
