A Change of Heart pt. 2
Friday (January 2)
A Change of Heart pt. 2
1 Samuel 10:9
When he turned his back to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart.
Let’s continue our inquiry into the mystery that meets us through these words, “God gave Saul another heart.” Think it through with me a little further. In fact, flip ahead in your mind to the New Testament where another Saul, Saul of Tarsus, will receive a new heart from Christ, as it were, and undergo his own instantaneous metamorphosis. In fact, later on in his life, while serving as Christ’s hand-picked Apostle, he’ll go on to write both verses from 2 Corinthians and Ephesians that I quoted yesterday related to the old man being made new. So, let’s ask the question again: to what extent did Paul become brand new upon being blindsided by Christ on the road to Damascus? Was he no longer a Hebrew of Hebrews? Did all the knowledge of the Law he’d picked up during years of studying under Gamaliel suddenly vanish? Did God literally supersede Paul’s genetic code given through his parents, along with his personality and natural gifting, to make him something entirely different? Of course not! But God turned Paul’s natural zeal for the Law into zeal for the gospel of grace. And He transfigured Paul’s self-righteous mastery of letters into a desire to lead unbelievers into a knowledge of Christ. Paul didn’t become an African or an Irishman or a Canaanite upon the conversion. His eyes didn’t turn from brown to blue, nor did his blindness or diabetes or lactose intolerance suddenly vanish (though Christ could’ve healed him of these things if He wanted). Instead, Christ redeemed the old, natural man, Saul, into the spiritually minded man, Paul, where the same natural strengths and weaknesses and propensities now had the capacity to glorify the Creator of them.
This same mystery is alive in us even now, friend. We don’t quite see all the changes when we look in the mirror, but they’re there. Our new heart won’t show up on an EKG monitor, but it’s beating nonetheless. And we trust that as we continue to walk with Christ day by day, following where He leads and repenting of our sins, that at the end of these twenty-four hours we’ll look a little more like our Savior where it matters most.