Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols. And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations. (Ezekiel 36:25-27)The Lord told the prophet Ezekiel that there would come a day when the Lord himself would clean his people, to make them adequate to his service.
Under the old system, they were never adequate. There were laws for every part of life and they were very hard to keep from breaking. It wasn’t that God was cruel, he was just trying to show his people that there was no way they could come to him on their own power.
The Bible is full of those who realized this and moved past the sacrifices to the heart of God. They recognized that the sacrifices were nothing more than an outward sacrifice showing the reality of a loving heart.
He told Ezekiel that when that day of cleansing came, his people would have a new heart, a new Spirit, a new awareness of what God wants of us and how we may be pleasing to him.
This new cleansing was Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross. The new hart was God changing our inner man, our whole way of looking at him. The new Spirit was his Holy Spirit that would empower us and fill us, move us and change us.
We would no longer be a people of laws, but of Spirit. We would obey God from our very natures, not from a book of rules. The things we do will outward shows of inward holiness, not saving in and of themselves, but saved because we love God.
The people of God would no longer be a natural people, but a spiritual people. They would come from everywhere, not just Israel. The new people of God would include everyone, not just natural born Israelites.
But above all, we would worship God by nature, not by law.
That day is now, and that people is us. And you can be part of it.
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