It is a common experience for people to feel locked into certain attitudes and patterns of behaviour without any sense of escape. It is like being locked inside a person who you don’t want to be. Real change would have been impossible had it not been for an amazing solution that God made possible for us. Life change begins with a change of heart, and only God can really change our hearts. The great promise that Ezekiel announces here in chapter 36 is that a time was coming (and has now come) when God would pour his Spirit into the hearts of his people, thereby depositing his desires directly into the cockpit of our lives. This does not ensure that we will automatically change though. What the Holy Spirit gives us is a renewed desire for what is right and truthful. He awakens our conscience and turns the lights on within us. This can feel like a negative experience at first because God negates the ‘anaesthetics’ that keep us dead to our spiritual condition. Things become more polarised within us. We feel the coldness and emptiness of our misdeeds with great intensity as never before. But we also feel compelled to live in holiness and righteousness as the Spirit empowers us to do. The promise of these verses in Ezekiel is for you, and it is available now. God invites you to receive his Spirit so that he may rule in your heart and enable you to overcome your self-destructive inclinations. He wants to set you free by his Spirit.
Ask God to fill you afresh with his Holy Spirit.
Read Ezekiel 36:24-38
