A Change of Heart pt. 1
Thursday (January 1)
A Change of Heart pt. 1
1 Samuel 10:1, 9
Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head and kissed him and said, “Has not the LORD anointed you to be prince over his people Israel? And you shall reign over the people of the LORD and you will save them from the hand of their surrounding enemies.” … When he turned his back to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart.
As we re-open our study of 1 Samuel together, picking back up where we left off a few months ago, the biblical author immediately immerses us into a mystery that lies at the very heart of the doctrine of regeneration: namely, God’s creation of a new man out of an old one. We can call it a tug-of-war between the flesh and the spirit, or we can think of it as a sort of balancing act between our genetic coding and the fruits of the Spirit, but the metamorphosis of conversion is clearly a process of nature and grace together. The question is which parts of our natural selves become replaced by a new spiritual self? That is, which aspects of our God-given personalities and DNA get overwritten by a new personality and a brand-new heart? The deeper we dive into that question, the more we’ll find ourselves gasping for air.
In Ezekiel 36:26, the LORD proclaims, “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” And Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” And Paul exhorts us further in Ephesians 4:24, “Put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Yet, God is the Author of both our natural-born gifts and our spiritual gifts, right? He doesn’t unwrite our genetic code at conversion—He sanctifies it. He resurrects unmet potential and latent abilities, all while breathing into our hearts new desires and new applications for old abilities.
I suggest we read this line “God gave him another heart” as a principle of redemption, not replacement. For Almighty God doesn’t start from scratch at our conversion; rather, He beautifies and sanctifies the old man into His likeness.