Recreate Church, Pastor Michael Shockley—Service, Sunday, December 25, 2022

It’s Christmas! Today, Pastor Michael is all about Christmas and he’s piggybacking off the story of the Grinch’s heart.   In our culture, today, we use the heart for a lot of emotive responses. In the Hebrew culture of Ezekiel, they didn’t express emotions via the heart, they used the bowels (whoa!). The Bible uses the heart as the center of the intellect; not emotional responses.  When the Lord tells us we are going to get a new heart, He’s giving us a new way of thinking, understanding and how to respond.   So true change of heart is more than an emotional switch. Michael also brings up a fantastic point about hardness of our own hearts, towards others.  “Hardness in your heart will never create softness in another person’s heart.  It’ll just hurt you more”.   (CSB Study Bible Notes) 36:26 The statement I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you reflects the teaching of Dt 30:6-8—that the Lord will circumcise the hearts of his people so they may live in obedience. This radical new creation (Ezk 11:19; 18:31; Jr 31:31-34) was necessary to break the people’s bondage to the cycle of sin and retribution emphasized in Ezk 20. Regeneration is a secret act of God by which he imparts new spiritual life to dead hearts. Verses can be found today in Ezekiel 36: 26-27. Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.