Weekly Devotional: Gems From Pastor Jim 8/17/2020

by Jim Hughes

Ezek. 36:26-27 And I will give you a new heart with new and right desires, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony heart of sin and give you a new, obedient heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so you will obey my laws and do whatever I command.

When Jesus enters the soul of man, things begin to happen. There are a lot of different things that He does within us besides forgiving us of our sins. The first thing that He does is He gives us a heart transplant.

The Lord gives us a new heart. He does this because the old heart, the heart of sin, is hard as a rock and cannot accept the things of God. A heart full of sin cannot obey God. It cannot long for the things of God. It cannot hear God when He speaks. It has no desire for the things God provides.

When we live in Christ, the way we were gives way to a new life. We desire to please God instead of ourselves. We desire to hear from God so that we will know how to please Him and what we must do in order to obey Him. We develop a hunger for the Word of God because we know it is God’s voice speaking through it. We desire to be with God so we seize opportunities we have to have fellowship with Him.

You cannot have saving faith without having a new heart. God transforms us. We are constantly changing into a holy people. Christ becomes the influencer of all we do. We live for Him and follow Him wherever He may lead us. There is an insatiable longing in the heart of the redeemed for Jesus now and for all of eternity.

About the Author:

Spending his formative years in Ft. Wayne, IN, Jim followed the love of his life to southeast Iowa where they married and have spent the majority of their lives. Jim has pastored several churches throughout his life and has worked many years in local factories to help support his family. The father of two married adult children and one son still at home, Jim is a first-time author.

C Through Marriage came into being through many years of pastoral and life experiences. The book first took on a life of its own over 20 years ago when I sought to address the much publicized moral failures of prominent leaders in the church. In the chapter on Chasity, I include the guideliness that I developed then to protect one's self from such failures.

I am a firm believer in order to make sense out of life you have to use much common sense. We need to get back to the basics of what has worked for many, many generations. If is isn't broke, why try to fix it? I strive to return to the basics of what really works in all my writings.