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Answer
The Bible frequently mentions the heart. The term heart can have various meanings depending on the context. Primarily, the heart refers to the essence of a person that governs their will and emotions. It is the “inner man” «For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. », (2 Corinthians 4:16). The prophet Ezekiel makes multiple mentions of a “new heart” (e:g:, Ezekiel 18:31; Ezekiel 36:26). One well-known verse is Ezekiel 11:19 where God declares, “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.” So, what does this signify?
In Ezekiel 11, God is speaking to His people, the Israelites, assuring them of a future restoration to the land and a renewed relationship with Him. God pledges to gather the Hebrews from the nations where they were dispersed «Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. », (Ezekiel 11:17) and grant them a new, undivided heart (verse 19). The outcome of receiving a new heart will be obedience to God’s commands: “Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God” (verse 20). This prophecy will come to pass in the millennium, when Jesus the Messiah reigns from Zion and Israel is restored to faith «And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, And shall turn away ungodliness fFrom Jacob: (Romans 11:26).
Someone whom God has given a new heart behaves differently. Saul is an example of this in 1 Samuel 10:1 and 9. God had chosen Saul to be the first king of Israel. Saul was a nobody, but God chose him anyway and sent the prophet Samuel to anoint him king. “Then Samuel took a flask of olive oil and poured it on Saul’s head and kissed him, saying, ‘Has not the Lord anointed you ruler over his inheritance?’” Samuel made several predictions to prove to Saul that God had sent him, and verse 9 says, “As Saul turned and started to leave, God gave him a new heart, and all Samuel’s signs were fulfilled that day.” The new heart God gave Saul transformed him from an average nobody to the king of Israel. Not only was his status changed, but his entire outlook was transformed by the power of God.
The human heart was created to mirror God’s own heart (Genesis 1:27; James 3:9). We were designed to love Him, love righteousness, and walk in harmony with God and others “He hath shown thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”, (Micah 6:8). But part of God’s design of the human heart is free will. That free will carries with it the opportunity to abuse it, as did Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden “And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?”, (Genesis 3:11). God desires that we choose to love and serve Him. When we stubbornly refuse to follow God, our hearts, which were designed to communicate with God, are hardened. God compares rebellious hearts to stone.«Indeed, they made their hearts as unyielding as stone, so they would not listen to the law and the words that the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So a great wrath came from the LORD of hosts.», (Zechariah 7:12). A heart of stone makes repentance, loving God, or pleasing Him impossible «So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.», (Romans 8:8). The hearts of sinful humanity are so hardened that we cannot even seek God on our own «There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.», (Romans 3:11), which is why Jesus said no one can come to Him unless the Father first draws them «No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.», (John 6:44). We are in desperate need of new hearts because we are unable on our own to soften our hardened hearts. A change of heart toward God necessitates a supernatural transformation. Jesus referred to it as being “born again” «Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’», (John 3:3).
When we experience this rebirth, God performs a heart transplant, so to speak. He gives us a new heart. The Holy Spirit’s power transforms our hearts from being focused on sin to being focused on God. We do not become perfect «If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.», (1 John 1:8); we still have our sinful nature and the freedom to choose whether or not to obey it.Ever, when Jesus died for us on the cross, He broke the power of sin that controls us «For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. », (Romans 6:10). Receiving Him as our Savior gives us access to God and His power—a power to transform our hearts from sin-hardened to Christ-softened. When we were separated from God with hardened hearts, we found it impossible to please Him. We tended toward selfishness, rebellion, and sin. With new hearts we are declared righteous before God «For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.», (2 Corinthians 5:21). The Holy Spirit gives us a desire to please God that was foreign to us in our hardened state. Second Corinthians 3:18 says that we “are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” God’s desire for every human being is that we become like His Son, Jesus «For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. », (Romans 8:29). We can become like Jesus only when we allow God to rid us of our old, hardened hearts and give us new hearts.
