Step 3 -- A New Heart

Step Three:  We turned our will and our life over to the care of God as we understood Him.

The Lord God says:  I am bringing you back again … It will be as though I had sprinkled clean water on you, for you will be clean  … I will give you new and right desires and put a new spirit within you.  I will take out your stony hearts of sin and give you new hearts of love.  And I will put My Spirit within you so that you will obey My laws and do whatever I command.   (Ezekiel 36:24-27)

Turning our will and our life over to God always involves action.  If we simply say that we have entrusted our life to Him without allowing Him to make changes on His terms, then there’s not much new that’s taken place.  In other words, to give our will and our life over to the care of God requires that I invite God to live something new in me that I’ve not known or experienced before.

We have experienced how helpless we are against the destructive evils in our life.  There’s no time when we are more aware of that than in the early days of recovery.  We deal with some behavioural issues that are before us but, for many of us, there are layers of insanity and failure that lie just below the surface that we are scared stiff to uncover.  The good news of Step 3 is that the God who brings us to this moment of wanting new life also provides whatever is needed to clean up what is ugly inside.  There are parts of our personality that have been scared by events that have taken place in our lives.  Through the blood of Jesus, those scars can be healed and we can be made whole and set free to move forward to be the unique and wonderful person God created. 

As we respond to God’s gracious provision of forgiveness and restoration, God transplants a new heart into us and fills us with His Spirit so we can make decisions that follow His loving plans.  This new heart is His gift to those who believe in the work of Jesus on their behalf – His dying on the cross for all wrongs done to us and all wrongs done by us. Even though Jesus was God’s Son, He had to learn from experience what it was like to obey when obeying meant suffering.  It was after He had proved Himself perfect in this experience that Jesus became the Giver of eternal salvation to all those who obey Him.  (Hebrews 5:8-9)

We have to learn new ways of thinking and behaving and regularly check with God to see if this is what He calls right and good.  To turn our will and our life over to the care of God is to give Him permission to tell us what is right or wrong, harmful or good, and actually adjust our behaviour to live that way.  We will do it once.   We will do it again.  We will continue making this dramatic change every single time our old way of doing things conflicts with God’s principles for new life.

You must be careful to do the good things that result from being saved, obeying God with deep reverence, shrinking back from all that might displease Him.  For God is at work within you, helping you want to obey Him, and then helping you do what He wants.  (Philippians 2:12-13)