Chosen for Greatness
The Amazing Journey from Heartless to Heartful
❤️ of the Matter:
In a world shrouded in darkness, where the hearts of humanity are as hard as stone, no one seeks to understand the divine. People drift aimlessly along paths of perversion, blind to the Creator's desires. They are heartless, living lives devoid of true purpose, unable to please the one who fashioned them.
But amid this bleak existence, a spark of hope flickers in the name of Jesus Christ. It is said that only those chosen for his greatness would receive a new heart, a gift from God Himself. Their stony hearts will be replaced with ones capable of love, understanding, and a pursuit of righteousness. And in this divine transformation, they would find their true path, pleasing their Creator and illuminating the way forward for others lost in the darkness.
The BIG 📸:
When we are first born into this world, we are bound by sin. This imprisonment results from humanity's choice to seek knowledge of good and evil in an attempt to become like God rather than living in fellowship with the Creator. As a consequence, humanity was separated from God and sentenced to death. This inherent sin is evident in everyone from an early age, with manifestations such as anger, selfishness, and deceit. In my own experience, growing up, I witnessed how drugs and alcohol tore my family apart. This drove me to strongly oppose such vices, only to fall victim to them as I matured. Perhaps your struggles were less tangible, such as pride, manipulation, passive aggressiveness, or harboring ill feelings towards someone created in God's image. Whatever it may be, we all find ourselves powerless to resist these struggles at the beginning of our spiritual journeys.
We begin heartless, drifting along a current of perversion and hardened by sin's deceitfulness, destroying everything we love and, ultimately, ourselves. I saw a news story recently where a stepfather was caught spying on his stepdaughter with a phone charger that was given to her as a gift from him. How does one arrive at this point? I'll concede the current is more potent for some than others when you consider some are thrust into the depths of darkness before they ever come of age, but let's all agree the current is accurate. Indecent Proposal was a Hollywood film released in 1993 about a billionaire offering a married man a large sum of money to sleep with his wife for one night.
Outside of adult film, I remember this being as about as salacious as it gets for the time. Today, people are not only entering such transactions; they're publicizing and marketing them for money. Homosexuality used to be taboo. Now, it's a fad that otherwise straight heterosexuals are perhaps dabbling in before they leave grade school. Meat market apps where bodies are for sale and one-night stands are the goal have exploded in popularity. Everywhere you go, modesty is a relic, and virginity is likened to being an outcast. This is how a stepfather eventually gets to the point where he wants to spy on his stepdaughter, hardened by sin's deceitfulness. As disgusting as it is, there's a 24-hour news cycle filled with even more vile and depraved acts that we commit against one another.
Each man and woman operate as individual states, determining what is good and evil. When there is no standard, no superior moral law to govern the body politic other than those we create or compromise on the fly, the result is all kinds of sin, descent, and decay that corrode homes, communities, states, countries, and eventually nations. DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS! Christ has come to give you a new heart and replace your heart of stone with a heart of flesh and the Holy Spirit to forever break the power of sin over your life.
The amazing journey of going from heartless to heartful is a miracle. God called you to himself! You are no longer powerless to the current. God will strengthen you to swim against it. It doesn't mean you're perfect, but with a heart transplant, your focus is shifting from sin and self-pleasing to pleasing God. Imagine being blind all your life, and now you can see. This is what it's like! DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS! It's a cause for celebration. The world is no longer shrouded in darkness but exposed by the light of God's truth. You were once lost, but now you are found. God has chosen you for his greatness. Praise the Lord forever and ever. Amen.
The 🍞 of Life:
“‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 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. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God. - Ezekiel 36:24-28
So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God. - Romans 8:6-8
There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. - Romans 3:11
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. - John 6:44
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. - John 3:3
See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. As has just been said: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.” Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief. - Hebrews 3:12-19
When he turned his back to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart. And all these signs came to pass that day. - 1 Samuel 10:9
They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets.So the Lord Almighty was very angry. - Zechariah 7:12
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. - 1 John 1:8
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. - 2 Corinthians 5:21
And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. - 2 Corinthians 3:18
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. - Romans 8:29
Take a Deeper Dive 🌊:
Find out what happens to the man in the image above when God enters the picture here!
To Thy Matchless Glory 👑