Jump-Start Your Heart

By: Pat Hobert

Ezekiel 36:26

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you: I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

In 2003 I had open heart surgery; not in the physical sense, but in the spiritual sense while attending my first Christians in Commerce Challenge Weekend. Actually, my “spiritual surgery” went unnoticed by all the attendees at the time because it was between me, (the patient) and God (the surgeon) who opened my heart to the Holy Spirit.

Until I got to know Jesus through my open heart surgery in 2003, followed by what I now call my weekly “spiritual therapy” each Friday morning, my heart had been “flat-lining”.

The spiritual therapy I went through to strengthen my “new heart” took a few years of showing up at the weekly CIC Friday meetings. God promised the prophet Ezekiel (along with anyone else who chose to follow God) that a stony, stubborn heart would be replaced with a tender, responsive heart. That was my goal! God’s gift of the Holy Spirit can jump-start your heart into permanent change, but only if you’re open to that change.

Gradually, as the Holy Spirit grew stronger within me, I began to see things differently, think differently, act differently and I began to hear God’s voice as he guided my decisions both at home and at work. Some people say after having undergone this transformation that they are born again. I prefer to think that I have gained a new personal relationship with Jesus Christ and am more fully alive as a direct result of attending a Challenge Weekend back in 2003.

TAKE THE CHALLENGE: Is your spiritual heart beating regularly or is it flat-lining? What are you doing to jump-start it?