I Am Not the Man I Used to Be - A Changed Heart

The Power to Change a Heart

Hello friends. In the spring of 2023 I had something happen to me that completely changed my life. I'd like to take just a moment to tell you about that.

Originally I had composed a long story that began with my initial profession of faith at age 7 and that recounted my spiritual struggles had over the years, and then finally told how God miraculously intervened to change my heart. What I realized though was that in telling “my story” the emphasis was all wrong. What's most important is not “my story,” but God's glory. With that in mind let me take a moment tell you about His power, and His goodness, and His great and unfathomable grace.

What's First?:

I am not the man I used to be, and all that I am today, and all that I will become tomorrow, every good thing that has come to me has come ONLY by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ my Lord! That's first. And now...

What God Did:

In simple terms, in the spring of 2023 God changed my heart. And as I've have reflected on the specifics of the change He made in me, I have come to this conclusion. What I have experienced is the promise of Ezekiel 36:26-27. There God says, “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”(Nas95). This Old Testament promise is a foreshadowing of the words of Jesus when He said that for people to see the Kingdom, they must be born again (see John 1:11-13, with John 3:3-7). To be born again is to have a changed heart. In what follows I'll summarize 4 evidences I see of a changed heart in me.

Evidence 1: A Cycle Was Broken

Before God changed me, my focus was on the stuff of this world; my affections were centered on the things of this life. I loved stuff, the next gadget, the next video game, the next movie, the next thrill, the next whatever. I was trapped in the cycle of wanting something, getting it, “loving” it (for about 27 seconds), and then forgetting it, only to want something else. And this happened over and over and over again. And in all of that there was never any real or lasting satisfaction.

When God changed my heart that cycle was broken. One of the first things I noticed after the change was that the stuff of the world had no real appeal for me anymore. Instead, the focus of my affections had shifted toward God, and I began to find my heart yearning for Him and wanting to know Him better. I also found in my heart a love for God that I had never known, and that I am sure did not originate in me.

Today that love is not perfect; it is something I am growing in, but the change is undeniable. Further, I have found in God what the the stuff of the world could never provide, real and lasting satisfaction. From the moment of change until today, almost 3 years later, my greatest satisfaction is found as I meet with God in prayer.

Evidence 2: A Prayer Life Transformed

When God changed my heart my prayer life was revolutionized. Before the change, prayer was something I did out of duty or desperation, if I prayed at all. Now when I pray I enjoy God's presence in a way I never have before. Prayer is the avenue through which Christians experience a relationship with God in Christ. And for me, at times, the joy and peace I find in prayer are almost overwhelming. My prayer life is not perfect; it's often a struggle to pray, and my experience of God's presence in prayer varies. Nevertheless, what prayer means for me has fundamentally changed; prayer is no longer a duty, but a true delight.

Evidence 3: A Summary from Scripture

When I think about the change God has made in me, I find a remarkable connection to 1 John 2:15. There John issues this command; “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” When John talks about “the love of the Father” in this verse he's not talking about God's love for us; he's talking about our love for God. So the essence of John's command is, “Don't love the world; instead love God.” I read that verse many times over the years, and every time I read it I had no idea how to do it. Don't love the world? I was hopelessly in love with the world; and I couldn't stop loving it. Love God? I was utterly incapable of loving God. But when God changed my heart, I was given the power to do both. Today I really don't love the world or the things in it. Today I do love God, and though my love for Him is still imperfect, I love Him in a way I never thought possible.

These are some the evidences I see in myself of a changed heart, and I believe they are evidences of God's work in me. And that leaves me with a question.

Why?

Why would God do a work in me? There was no reason I could see. There was absolutely positively NOTHING in me that was commendable to God. Before He touched me I was sinful to the core, I was in love with the world, and I completely ignored Him. Going back to Ezekiel 36:27, I had a stone cold rock hard heart that was completely insensitive to God.

Don't misunderstand; I have believed in God, virtually all of my life. And I believe the facts of the Gospel, of Jesus death on the cross for sinners, and of His resurrection from the dead. And I've had a fair amount of theological education; I have grasped and embraced orthodox doctrine, and have believed it and defended it for years. The problem was that my faith never went beyond an intellectual ascent to the facts. In all I “believed,” I had no capacity to know God in a relationship. The reason? I had a major heart problem. I was dead in my trespasses and sins.

God has given new hearts to many people; today we call those people Christians. And now, for some inexplicable reason, God has given to me a new heart as well. Why would He do that? There's only one word to explain it. Grace. Because of His great grace God chose to change me. God chose to reach down and cause me to live spiritually. He called my dead heart to life.

And God did this NOT on the basis of deeds I've done in righteousness. He did this only because of the finished work of Jesus Christ for me. It is because of Christ's death, His sacrifice to pay the penalty for my sin, His choice to die in my place so I don't have to, it is because of His death for me and because of His glorious resurrection that I live now, and will live forever. That's all because of God's grace and not because of anything me. Even though I was dead in my sins, God has made me alive together with Christ; by grace I have been saved.

And this leads me to one more evidence of the change God has made in me. Please allow me a moment to explain.

The Necessary Struggle:

When God gives someone a new heart the change can be dramatic, but it's also not perfect. Even with all the changes I have seen, my love for God is not perfect, my prayer life is not perfect, and my living out of the Christian life is certainly not perfect. I still battle with sin and I am not always successful in that fight.

The reason is this. There still remains in me, and in every believer, the remnants of what the Puritans called “indwelling sin,” or in Paul's words, “...sin which dwells in me.” (Romans 7:17). Yes, it is true that the Christian has been crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20). And it is true that when one is born again God the Holy Spirit comes to live in that person. This truth is widely taught in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 3:16, and 6:19, Romans 8:9 and others), and is clearly taught in Ezekiel 36:27, where God says, “I will put My Spirit within you...” But even with this wondrous work of God a remnant of sin remains.

So the stage is set. The Christian, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, none the less retains a remnant of sin, known as “the flesh.” The result is conflict, described by Paul in Galatians 5:17, “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.” And in this conflict the Christian is called to deal with the remnant of his or her sin by the power that the Holy Spirit provides. The command therefore is to, “...walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. (Galatians 5:16), or to put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit (Romans 8:13).

The process of putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit is known as “sanctification.” And in sanctification the Christian becomes more and more like Christ in word and deed. To put that another way, sanctification is to become conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29). And note this well; sanctification is not optional. Paul issues a sober warning in Romans 8:12-13:

So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

We as Christians are under obligation to put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit. This is not an optional pursuit for “higher” Christian living; this is Christian living. As the author of Hebrews commands, we are to “Pursue… the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.” (Hebrews 12:14).

Evidence 4: A Battle Within

Without question, my heart has been changed, but in terms of sin, I still fail. I still say things I shouldn't say and do things I shouldn't do. I still wrestle with what remains of my own sin nature. So today I see a battle going on in my life. On the one hand I want to do what God commands; I don't want to sin. On the other hand my sin nature continually tries to drag me back into sin. I'm living out Romans 7:19, “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.”

While that might sound like a miserable way to live, it's not. Before God changed me I tried hard in my own strength to grow in holiness and to practice righteousness. I failed. My former struggles to be like Christ were dominated by defeat. Today, and it is joyous to see, there is another power at work in me.

A Little About Grace and Then I'm Done:

The Bible tells us that God's grace is sufficient for us, and it is. I believed that truth for many years. Today, however, I don't just believe that God's grace is sufficient, I experience it. The grace of God is a present power at work in me. More specifically the Holy Spirit, the “Spirit of grace” (Hebrews 10:29), provides the power for me, and for all Christians, to defeat sin and to be sanctified, to become more and more like Jesus Christ.

How does that work? When I am tempted to sin, by faith I turn to God and I find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16). In that moment the Spirit empowers me to stand against temptation and to defeat it. Or, when I find a sinful attitude rising in my heart I turn to God. By faith I consider myself to be dead to that sinful attitude and alive to God (Romans 6:11). When I do that, the Spirit intervenes with grace, and I am empowered to send my bad attitude packing.

In this way I am putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit. And, little by little, I am becoming more and more like Jesus Christ in my attitudes and in my actions, in what I say and in what I do. I am pursuing sanctification by grace through faith in Christ, and progress is being made.

Do I do this perfectly? Nope. But what's interesting is that the only time I fail is when I fail to turn to God in my time of need. Every time I do turn to Him I find grace to help, I find real power to defeat sin. What Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:13 is certainly true:

No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.

The way of escape is the power of the grace that God provides when we turn to Him for help.

Finally, please note that in my efforts in pursuit of sanctification I am not saving myself. I have already been saved; that happened when God changed my heart. Rather, the pursuit of sanctification is the confirmation of my salvation, and this process will continue until the day I die. So today, as Paul commands, I am working out my salvation with fear and trembling knowing that God is at work in me (See Philippians 2:12-13). And so if, at the end of the day, I am a little more like Christ than I was at the beginning, I have no room to boast. I'm not being changed by my own power, but by His. So whatever little tiny baby step I take in sanctification today is 100% His grace and 0% me. All the progress I make, I make in absolute begging dependence on God.

There's more to be said, but let me end where I began.

I am not the man I used to be, and all that I am today, and all that I will become tomorrow, every good thing that has come to me has come ONLY by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ my Lord!

To Him be the glory now and forever and ever! Amen.

Thanks for taking the time to read my story.

If you have comments, questions, or concerns, or if I need to explain something further, please feel free to contact me here: https://www.newheartnewlife.com/contact

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Have a great and safe day!

Blessings!

Ken