Life With God In Recovery Step Three 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 will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.  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.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. (Ezekiel 36:25-27 NIV)

Turning our will and our life over to God always involves action.  If we simply say that we have entrusted our life to God 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 we invite God to birth something new in us that we’ve not known or experienced before.

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 and 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, that work is 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 learned obedience from the things he suffered. In this way, God qualified him as a perfect High Priest, and he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him. (Hebrews 5:8-9 NLT)

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 according to what God says is good for us.  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)

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