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A New Heart
Psalm 51:10
This month marks eight years of Peace Devotions. As we remember this big anniversary, it’s good for us to thank God for giving us this opportunity, for us to share His Word with so many over these years, to also thank our pastors who dedicated so much time to writing their devotions, and be willing to sit in the hot seat as well. And of course, thank our producer, Phil Wels. So we certainly thank all of those people for eight wonderful years. It’s kind of amazing to think that this coming year, we are approaching our 1,000th episode that we plan to film this year.
That kind of reminds me of how all of this began eight years ago. I remember I got a phone call one day from my good friend Matt Wiechmann, and he told me, Matt, I want you to write a devotion 2 or 3 minutes long, and I want you to meet me in this park at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning. I’ll tell you what we’re going to do then. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but that day we filmed our very first Peace Devotion, and that got this whole thing started.
It’s kind of interesting looking back on that day and on that devotion as well, that devotion actually never aired. And so thinking about coming close to our thousandth recording of Peace Devotions and so forth, I thought maybe it would be nice to share with you the basic context of that very first devotion that we filmed.
Ramone was the four year old brother of a student that attended the school that my church supported when I served down in Florida. His mother brought him to the hospital one day for an outpatient procedure, standard procedure, and while he was there, they gave him an IV. But the nurse made a mistake. The nurse forgot to clear the line of air, and when she put the IV in, the oxygen, went straight to his heart and damaged it. Destroyed it completely. Thankfully, the doctors were able to save his life, but Ramone had to remain in the hospital until a new heart could be found. It was a long six months, but eventually it was and Ramone was able to return home healthy, safe and sound.
God’s Word for us today is recorded in Psalm 51, verse ten, where King David says this
Create in me a pure heart, O God.
Renew an unwavering spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10)
David in that verse is really asking that God give him a new heart, or create in him a a pure heart, as he says. And why does he ask for this? Well, we know the context. The reason David says this is because he’s thinking about his sin that he’s committed with Bathsheba. Now he’s murdered her husband as well and told so many lies and how all of this was brought to the forefront through God’s prophet who had confronted him. And now David was overwhelmed with the guilt. And so he asked God to wash away his sins. He asked God that he would create in him a pure heart. But how could that happen?
You know, when you think back to little Ramone, what did it take for him to get a new heart? It wasn’t that the doctor had one in the back room that he could easily go and get. It wasn’t that they could grow one on the back of a mouse or something like that. Someone had to die. And someone did die. A child died and the heart was donated so that Ramone could live. It’s a reminder for us as well, when it comes to our own hearts, filled with so much sin that in order for our own hearts to be purified, to be made right with God, someone had to die.
You see, our sin was no small price. Not just sins like adultery and murder, but sins like stealing and lying, gossip and so many others. All of those sins deserve God’s wrath and punishment. And the only way for our hearts to be made right with God is for someone to die. And someone did die. He sent his Son, Jesus Christ to die in the cross for your sins and mine, so that our hearts, filled with so much sin, could be purified. So that they could be made right with God.
What a good reminder that is for us, especially in our own lives, to know that God has given us new hearts. First of all, as he has brought us to faith in His Son Jesus Christ. But even now, as Christians, as we sometimes can feel the weight and guilt of our sin to return again to God as King David did so beautifully in our Psalm, to ask God that he wash away our sins, and that he create in us a pure heart as well, and to know that he will through His Son Jesus Christ, and what he has done for us. Amen.
