I’ve been meditating on Jerred’s message about the Resurrected God.  It stirred up a lot of things about Ezekiel 36, and the new heart and new Spirit and what it means to walk in the statutes and judgments of God.  I was taught a lot of things about God giving us a new heart and a new spirit, so I want to look at it in its proper context.

Eze 36:22  Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went.
Eze 36:23  And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, saith the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.
Eze 36:24  For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.
Eze 36:25  Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
Eze 36:26  A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
Eze 36:27  And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
Eze 36:28  And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.

The language used in Ezekiel 36 is deeply connected with Deuteronomy 6 and Hebrews 8 & 10 and also Romans 8.  Hebrews 8 talks about God writing His law in our hearts and in our minds through the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, so we can know He is our God, and we are able to live as His people.  That’s the same thing God says in Ezekiel when He says I will give you a new heart and a new spirit, that will cause you to walk in my statutes and my judgments, and I will be your God and you will be my people.  Deuteronomy 6 talks about the Israelites having one God, and not worshipping the works of their hands so they can inherit the land God promised them.  God says the same thing in Ezekiel 36 when He says He will sanctify His name, and take out of them a stony heart, and give them a heart of flesh, that will cause them to walk in His statutes and judgments, so they can inherit the land He gave to their fathers.  Ezekiel 36 talks about God sprinkling clean water upon us to cleanse us from our filthiness, and to cleanse our hearts from our idol worship.  Hebrews 10 talks about our hearts being sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies being washed with pure water, so we can draw near to God.  

The thing God was after from the beginning with Israel was for His name to be sanctified in the eyes of all people.  He wanted to be set apart in the eyes of the world as the lover of our lives.  As Father, as the one who has taken thought to care for our lives; the one who saves from sin and death, and serves with an incorruptible life.  

God says to Israel in Ezekiel 16 I walked by you when you were in your blood, and my heart was filled with love for you.  I found you dead in your sin, and I loved you so much, I spread my skirt over you, I joined myself to you in your blood so I could decorate you in the fruit of my life.   

God wanted to take a people who were not esteemed as anything in the eyes of the world, just as the scripture says there was nothing of beauty to behold in Jesus.  He wanted to join Himself to those people, who the world regarded as so weak it wouldn’t even acknowledge them as a people, and then exalt those same people by the strength of His hand, to a city on a hill, where they can shine as a light in the world, declaring God’s love for the world, and His strength to conquer death in the flesh and bring forth life.  

What happened is Israel didnt walk in the statutes and judgments of God.  They committed adultery on God, they went awhoring after other gods.  They had other gods besides the Lord their God.  They fornicated with the strength of the flesh.  They loved the world.  They looked on the corruptible things in the world and lusted after life through those things.  They worshipped the works of their own hands for life, and because of that they served themselves with death and destruction in the midst of the great congregation, that is the world.  And because they were known as the people of Yahweh, what happened is, when Israel brought death and destruction upon themselves, the world saw that as the fruit, or the reward God has in His hand to give people, and thus God’s name was defiled in the eyes of the world, even worse than it already was.  

God says through Ezekiel, I will sanctify my great name.  As Jerred so beautifully said in his message on the Resurrected God.  God had to be lifted up in our sight.  He needed to be exalted in our eyes so we could receive strength to walk in His statutes and His judgments.  God says in Isaiah 2:3 I will send forth a law out of Zion that will sanctify my name.  That’s why it says all nations shall flow to the Lord’s house.  Jesus is the law Isaiah prophesied would come out of Jerusalem.  The cross and the resurrection is the law Isaiah says will come out of Zion.  The word made flesh in Jesus brings to light the truth about God, and sanctifies His name.  That’s why Jesus says in John 17 glorify me that I may glorify you.  

The new heart and the new spirit Ezekiel talks about is akin to the law that came out of Zion.  That’s why God says in Hebrews 8 I will write my law on their hearts and in their minds.  The law that came out of Zion, that God writes on our hearts, is that God is not the author of the death that was destroying us.  As Jerred so beautifully said, we know Gods not the author of the death that was destroying us because when He came into the earth in Jesus, he suffered the same death we were suffering at the hands of sin.  The law that came out of Zion is God provided Himself a lamb.  He submitted Himself unto our sin.  He humbled Himself unto our death.  He made Himself vulnerable to us.  He allowed Himself to be stripped naked.  He absorbed our death into Himself, so He could overcome the death in our flesh, and give us the coat of His indestructible life.  The law that came out of Zion says the gift God has in His hand to give is a life that superabounds over sin and death.  This is the new heart, this is the new Spirit God says He will give us, the truth that manifested in Jesus, and is contained in the Holy Spirit.  This sanctifies Gods name in our hearts by revealing He is the lover of our lives, not the destroyer of our lives.  In this revelation is the grace to cry out Abba.

For many years I thought the new heart and new spirit was only a mystical thing, where I said my physical heart and my physical spirit had to be replaced because I was just despicable and rotten to the core of my being.  I thought I’m ugly to God and He must give me a new heart so I can be beautiful to Him.  I thought it was all about just saying I had a new heart.  I didn’t know the power was in seeing what the new heart was.  

The new heart and the new spirit is about the image of God being sanctified in the hearts of mankind.  That’s why the scripture says God sprinkled clean water upon us.  He washed our bodies with the pure water of the word that was made flesh in Jesus.  Meaning God cleansed our hearts from our idols.  He put our flesh to rest.  He cleansed our hearts from a life of working to try and gather peace and love and joy to ourselves.  That’s why the letter to the Hebrews says God sprinkles our hearts from an evil conscience.  He cleansed us from a conscience that was carrying the burden of caring for our own lives.  He cleansed our conscience from the sting of death.  He did that by providing Himself a lamb to perfect us from the death in the world

We had a stony heart.  We had the spirit of fear, that was keeping us from being put to rest.  Our hearts were hardened to God’s love for us, and that kept us from being able to walk in God’s statutes and judgments.  A stony heart is akin to the carnal mind.  It’s enmity against God.  Its a heart that is in opposition to Gods own heart.  Where Gods heart is filled with love, a stony heart will see something in God to be afraid of.  A person with a stony heart is in bondage to trying to gather life to themselves because they cannot comprehend the goodness of God to serve them with life. Adam had a stony heart after he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  He couldnt comprehend the love in Gods heart for His life, His mind was filled with the body of death he was clothed in, and because of that he was taken captive to trying to cloth himself with Gods life.

The new heart is God giving us a true heart of faith; thats the heart of flesh Ezekiel talks about; the heart that is kindred to God’s own heart; a heart filled with the faith of God.  God gave us His heart, that we might see the only gift He has to give us is eternal life, and we call upon His name.  As Romans 1 says Gods righteousness towards mankind is revealed from faith to faith. 

GOD says through Ezekiel, I will give you a new Spirit, and that Spirit will cause you to walk in my statutes and judgments.  What statutes and judgments?  Deuteronomy 6 says the statutes and judgments of God is to have one God the Lord your God.  It means for God and His life and His grace to be lifted up in your heart instead of the perishable life thats in the world and the works of your hands.  Jesus says in Johns gospel for judgment he came into the earth, and then he defines that judgment as healing the worlds blindness so they can see God is the healer not the punisher.  The judgment of Jesus is he revealed God is the one who justifies the ungodly, not the one who condemns the ungodly.  The judgment Jesus established is its the thief that steals, kills, and destroys, the thing God has to give is a life that superabounds over this world.  

We read statutes and judgments and immediately think of behavior .. but let’s read Deuteronomy 6 together

Deu 6:20  And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD our God hath commanded you?
Deu 6:21  Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh's bondmen in Egypt; and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand:
Deu 6:22  And the LORD shewed signs and wonders, great and sore, upon Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household, before our eyes:
Deu 6:23  And he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he sware unto our fathers.
Deu 6:24  And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day.

Ezekiel 36 says the new Spirit GOD gives us will cause us to walk in the statutes and judgments of God.  Well, the apostle Paul says in Romans 8 God has not given us a spirit of fear again unto bondage, but has given us the Spirit of Adoption, the Holy Spirit.  The spirit of fear is the old spirit.  The Spirit of Adoption is the new Spirit.  Paul says God has given us a new Spirit, the Spirit of Adoption, and this new Spirit reveals the love the Father has for us, and leads us to the place, where we cry out Abba.  Crying out Abba is what it means to walk in the statutes and judgments of God.  

God declared through the death and resurrection of Jesus, that He is the Father we need.  He revealed in the cross and the resurrection that He has taken thought to give our lives the kind of care they need.  He performed a work that is exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask or think.  He took captive, the death that held us in captivity, by the might in His hand.  And He has given us His Spirit, so we can comprehend Him, and the goodness in His heart towards us.  The Holy Spirit sanctifies God’s name in our hearts.  The Spirit cleanses God’s image from the death that’s in the world, and thats how the Holy Spirit leads us to the place where we see God is with us to be the Father we need.  

God says through Ezekiel, I will give unto you Jesus.  He will be unto you a new heart and a new spirit, as it is written Jesus was raised a life giving spirit.  He will sanctify my great name in the earth, and this will lead you to the place where you cry out Abba, and commit your desire for life, for rest, for peace and love and joy, into my hands.  When you can see I am jealous over life with a Godly jealousy, your heart will cry out Abba.  When you see the zeal I have for your life, that I am set apart to serving you with my life.  You will have one God, the Lord Your God, you will see I am the God you need, and you will receive strength to live as my people.  Meaning your flesh will be put to rest; you will be made to lie down in the tender green grass, because of the table of life you see I have prepared for you.  This is what it means to walk in the statutes and judgments of God.

If we look at Jesus.  Jesus didnt have the Spirit of fear on the cross, he had the Spirit of Adoption, thats how he could cry out, Abba.  When Jesus cried out Abba he was walking in the statutes and judgments of God.  Jesus saw the love in the Fathers eyes for him.  He saw the Father was jealous over his life.  He saw the Father was set apart unto serving him with the life he longed for, and that caused him to commit his desire for life into the hands of the Father.  That was him having one God the Lord his God.  His fear was before the Father.  The Father’s life was lifted up in His heart.  He was awestruck by the life He shared with the Father from the beginning.  He was walking in the statutes and judgments of God. 

Prayer