Jul 31, 2022

460 I Will Give You A New Heart, A Guided Christian Meditation on Ezekiel 36:26-29 with the Recenter With Christ app 

I'm Chaplain Jared and I work as a hospice chaplain and an ICU chaplain. My purpose in making this podcast is to help you find more peace in your life and to be more open for your heart to be changed by the Spirit of God.  By using centuries old form of Christian Meditation named Lectio Divina:

Outline: Relaxation, Reading, Meditation, Prayer, Contemplation and Visualization.

Get into a place where you can sit comfortably and uninterrupted for about 20 minutes.You should hopefully not be driving or anything tensing or unrelaxing.  If you feel comfortable to do so, I invite you to close your eyes.
 
Guided Relaxation / Guided Meditation:
 
Breathe and direct your thoughts to connecting with God. Let your stomach be a balloon inflate, deflate.

Bible verses for Meditation:

Ezekiel 36
NIV
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. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God. 29 I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and make it plentiful and will not bring famine upon you.

NABRE
26 I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. 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 so that you walk in my statutes, observe my ordinances, and keep them. 28 You will live in the land I gave to your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God. 29 I will deliver you from all your impurities. I will summon the grain and make it plentiful; I will not send famine against you.

Meditation:

I love this scripture. I do, however, often read it in isolation, apart from the preceding verses. God promises to give us a new heart and to place a new spirit within us. He will remove the heart of stone. When viewed in the context of the whole scripture this is referring to God restoring Israel after its captivity into Babylon that we saw in the previous episode. God said he did that for the sake of His own name. He also makes it clean that the people must Choose God. This seems to imply that God is not going to do involuntary heart surgery. It is directly tied to our willingness to yield to the commandments of God. 

The New Testament gives more insight into deeper truths about having the Spirit with us. As we become aware of how complicit we are in our own sin, we can then apply the healing balm of Gilead and help Christ in to clean up the mess in our own heart. The first step is to become willing to change toward what God wants, accept Christ’s redemptive power to transform us, then we are ready to change. There is an important question to ask ourselves first.

When we read of the redemption of collective Israel it can be very valuable to consider the state of our own heart. Do we want God to actually remove our sin? Many times there are parts of our sinful nature that we secretly hold onto. We may be dishonest with ourselves or perhaps we just maintain guilty pleasures. Do you want to change in the same way God wants you to change? 

Meditation of Prayer:

Pray as directed by the Spirit.

Dedicate these moments to the patient waiting, when you feel ready ask God for understanding you desire from Him.

Meditation of God and His Glory / Hesychasm:

I invite you to sit in silence feeling patient for your own faults and trials.

Summarize what insights you have gained during this meditation and meditate and visualize positive change in your life:

This is a listener funded podcast at patreon.com/christianmeditationpodcast

Updates: 

Final Question: How can you live consistent with the cleansing power God offers you?

This week I performed a funeral for a family from Africa. The amount of family that was physically present was not that large but there were many friends who were just as close as family in some ways and their presence and comfort was amazing. 

Final Thought:  

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