God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
If my heart is the source of my sin problem, then lasting change must always travel through the pathway of my heart. It is not enough to alter my behavior or to change my circumstances. Christ transforms people by radically changing their hearts. If the heart doesn’t change, the person’s words and behavior may change temporarily because of an external pressure or incentive. But when the pressure or incentive is removed, the change will disappear.
What will turn our hearts from the passing pleasures of sin? What can strengthen our wills to reject the temptations of the flesh? What will energize our souls to turn from world delusions? What has the power to transform our desires and reconfigure our longings and stir our emotional chemistry that we might love what God loves and hate what He hates? Only one thing. Not rules and threats and fear and punishment. Only one thing. Jesus, in all His beauty. Jesus, in all that He is for us now and will be tomorrow.
