Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Ezekiel 18:31 -- On Choosing a New Heart and Spirit

"Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?"
Ezekiel 18:31


The wording here seems to emphasize the rebirth and change involved in turning our lives towards God and embracing the gospel.  The idea of making a new heart and a new spirit is powerful, and I think helps us to understand that we aren't tied to anything that we don't want to be--that no matter what kind of "wicked spirit" needs to be "rooted out"of our breasts (Alma 22:15), it is *our* choice, and not chance, or birth, that chooses for us.

We are not trapped by evolution or genetics into anything that God cannot help us change.  Today, let's listen to God's pleadings and choose to live rather than to die.  We do that by turning to God, by letting go of, and casting away, our sins and transgressions.  Let's choose to have hearts and spirits that love the Lord, and that live.  God doesn't want us to be dead (verse 32) (or miserable).  He gives us the choice.  Let's take it, and choose to be new and alive and to rejoice in what we want to be, not what we think was chosen for us. 

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