Daily Wisdom 06-19-2008 The New Engine Difference

I'm in our van sitting at a red light - and suddenly this cloud of dark, acrid smoke starts belching out of my exhaust pipe. It was disgusting! Apparently, the motorists behind me felt the same way - they started honking at me. That helped tremendously. I just wished honking would have solved the problem. It didn't. One mechanic told me, "I wouldn't leave town with that van if I were you." He was right - of course, the smoke wasn't the problem - the problem was the engine. No, it didn't need to be fixed. It was too far gone for that. It had to be replaced!

The van I drove away from that garage looked like the same van I drove into that garage. Wrong. It was new on the inside - And, as a result, it was no longer leaving an ugly trail.

Actually, a lot of us have some emissions coming out of our lives that aren't too pleasant either. Maybe you know some of those feelings - too often there is anger spewing out . . . or self-pity because we feel like a victim . . . or negative, critical attitudes. We say what we later regret we said . . . we do what we later regret we did . . . we're hooked on what we wish we could stop . . . we leave a trail behind us of people who have choked on the smoke we put out. And it's not that we haven't tried to fix it. From New Year's resolutions to religion to self-improvement, we've tried to stop polluting our own lives and the lives of those around us but there is a problem inside.

God diagnoses that problem in His book Jeremiah 17:9 - "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" The engine is shot, in other words, and it can't be fixed. It has to be replaced. Which leads us to God's tremendous offer, our word for today from the Word of God, Ezekiel 36:26 - "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you a heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit in you."

God says our heart is too darkened and hardened by sin to ever quit putting out pollution. We can certainly never get into His totally unpolluted heaven with this polluted heart we all have. Our only hope for this life - and for eternal life - is a new heart. We can't perform heart surgery on ourselves! Only the divine surgeon can do that! He stands ready to take that heart of yours that has been hardened by all the hurt and the anger and the sin and replace it with a heart that is clean and sensitive and new! He'll put His Holy Spirit in you to make you the person you've wanted to be but never could be.

But the operation had to be paid for just as the engine replacement on my van had to be paid for - and I didn't have anything to pay it with. But to my amazement, some of God's people quietly got together and paid the bill. That's what Jesus was doing for you when He was agonizing on that cross - paying the bill for your sin that you could never pay - so you could be forgiven.

Are you ready for a new heart? It's time to open your heart to Jesus Christ, then.

All our lives we try to stop the ugly stuff that comes out of us - but it still keeps coming - until we get a new engine - a new heart. Jesus is waiting for you to tell Him that you want it.

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Today's Daily Wisdom is written by Ron Hutchcraft, based on his popular "A Word With You" broadcast (Available in transcripts or real audio format.) Ron Hutchcraft Ministries has been on-line with GCN since February, 1996, providing practical answers to real life issues. Copyright Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc.