Heart Surgery

Date: Sunday, June 28, 2026

Check out the second-half of the Bible Project's overview video of Ezekiel as we continue to march through the major points of the major prophets that will lead us into the New Testament.

Ezekiel 36 is a preview of Pentecost. God looks at His people, a stubborn, stiff-necked, scattered people among the nations, and extends His original promise: “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” (Ezekiel 36:26). God is not commanding us to try harder. He is announcing a divine transplant. The problem was never just behavior; it was the condition of the human heart. And God’s answer is surgical, not cosmetic.

This is the interior transformation of the New Covenant, fulfilled in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Paul picks it up in Romans and 2 Corinthians, noting that the Law is not written on tablets of stone but on the softness of the human heart. Ezekiel is probably reinforcing Jeremiah’s explicit reference to the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31), which we’ll get to in a few more days.

The Spirit does what willpower cannot. Spiritual formation is not self-improvement; it is surrender to the transformation only God can perform. What He begins in us, He finishes. The procedure can be time consuming. Our job is simply to trust in the skilled hands of the Surgeon and submit to the procedure.

Devotional Prompts:

In what area of your life are you most tempted to rely on willpower or behavioral modification rather than surrendering to the interior work of the Holy Spirit?
How does Ezekiel 36’s promise of a new heart change the way you think about sin, repentance, and genuine change?
What would it look like in your daily rhythms to cooperate more consciously with the Spirit’s transforming work in you?

Prayer: Spirit of the living God, do what only You can do. Remove what is hard and dead in me, and replace it with a heart that is alive to You. Amen.