Stem Cell Transplant
God, create a pure heart in me, and make my spirit strong again. Don’t push me away or take your Holy Spirit from me. Your help made me so happy. Give me that joy again. Make my spirit strong and ready to obey you. I will teach the guilty how you want them to live, and the sinners will come back to you. (Psalm 51:10-13 ERV)
Purity of heart is not something we accomplish on our own - we definitely need God's help with this one! In fact, it is impossible for the "impure" to ever reproduce "pure". The strength of spirit it took to compromise, or downright follow a path of impurity in the first place is what should make us realize we don't "find purity" on our own. We need (and we want) God to make our spirit strong again - but in the right direction!
It is one thing to be strong - it is another thing to exhibit the strength that is initiated and sustained by God himself. I can be a very strong-willed individual, but does that strength of will always produce the right outcomes in my life? Absolutely not! In fact, to be totally honest here, whenever my strength of will is in control, I kind of follow a course not so honoring to God!
Where God is given will, he produces that readiness to obey. In other words, when we eventually make a determined choice to stop demanding our own way, God begins to reproduce within us his strength of character that redefines our choices. Most of the time, this is exactly what keeps us in the compromising circle anyway - choices that need a little redefinition! His character reproduced within us isn't going to just come alongside impure character within us - it replaces it!
Think of God's grace as "stem cells" that have the ability to reproduce "good" and "vital" cells of solid character within. They are the "cells" that will overcome the "bad cells" of our own character that need to be gone anyway! We might "want to" change our character - but we lack the right "cellular materials" I would like to call the "purity cells". The character of God is exactly that - so he takes his "purity cells" and transplants them through "grace moments".
The thing that makes the difference when that "transplant" occurs is our openness to receiving the new "cells" of his character. If we are really desirous to have a change of character, we usually don't "reject" that new growth - but we embrace it. Yes, there will be a conflict because nothing within us dies easily when it comes to our sin nature, but it is possible the more we focus on doing the right stuff that allows those "purity cells" to take hold! Just sayin!
Purity of heart is not something we accomplish on our own - we definitely need God's help with this one! In fact, it is impossible for the "impure" to ever reproduce "pure". The strength of spirit it took to compromise, or downright follow a path of impurity in the first place is what should make us realize we don't "find purity" on our own. We need (and we want) God to make our spirit strong again - but in the right direction!
It is one thing to be strong - it is another thing to exhibit the strength that is initiated and sustained by God himself. I can be a very strong-willed individual, but does that strength of will always produce the right outcomes in my life? Absolutely not! In fact, to be totally honest here, whenever my strength of will is in control, I kind of follow a course not so honoring to God!
Where God is given will, he produces that readiness to obey. In other words, when we eventually make a determined choice to stop demanding our own way, God begins to reproduce within us his strength of character that redefines our choices. Most of the time, this is exactly what keeps us in the compromising circle anyway - choices that need a little redefinition! His character reproduced within us isn't going to just come alongside impure character within us - it replaces it!
Think of God's grace as "stem cells" that have the ability to reproduce "good" and "vital" cells of solid character within. They are the "cells" that will overcome the "bad cells" of our own character that need to be gone anyway! We might "want to" change our character - but we lack the right "cellular materials" I would like to call the "purity cells". The character of God is exactly that - so he takes his "purity cells" and transplants them through "grace moments".
The thing that makes the difference when that "transplant" occurs is our openness to receiving the new "cells" of his character. If we are really desirous to have a change of character, we usually don't "reject" that new growth - but we embrace it. Yes, there will be a conflict because nothing within us dies easily when it comes to our sin nature, but it is possible the more we focus on doing the right stuff that allows those "purity cells" to take hold! Just sayin!
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