Monday, September 14, 2026

            Ezekiel is one of the major prophets in the Bible.  It is a fairly long book by Bible standards—forty-eight chapters in total.  Ezekiel’s audience was Jewish exiles in Babylon and scattered elsewhere.  His name means “God strengthens.”  And indeed, Ezekeil foresaw a day when God would again regather and strengthen His people.  The exile in Babylon would not last forever and Israel would return to the land that God had provided.  Ezekiel declared what God would do for Israel in 36:26-29, “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. Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.  I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and make it plentiful and will not bring famine upon you.”  The prophet painted a bright and blessed future for Israel—a future where God would resettle them in their land and open His blessings and fruitfulness to them.
            The good news we immediately see is that God can change the human heart—any heart that looks to Him in faith and surrender.  Ezekiel wrote about a “heart of stone.”  This kind of heart is stubbornly opposed to God and resistant to God and His ways.  A heart of stone is/was not unique to ancient Israel.  People can develop such a heart even today.  A life of disobedience, defiance, bitterness and sin can easily harden and calcify our hearts. Only God can change the human heart.  There is no medication or New York Times bestseller that can create a new heart within us.  We are powerless to do this by ourselves. But the good news of the gospel is God can change our hearts through Jesus.  Jeremiah, another major prophet, also spoke of God’s capacity to change human hearts.  He wrote, “’This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.  I will be their God, and they will be my people’” (Jeremiah 31:33).
            God promised to give Israel (and us today) the capacity and help to love, serve and obey Him.  We can be grateful today, if we are saved by Jesus, for the presence of the Holy Spirit living within us.  He can produce good fruit from a changed heart.  The Holy Spirit living within us can give us the power to love and honor the Father who has saved us from sin and death.  The hymn “There Shall Be Showers of Blessing” was inspired by the words of Ezekiel in 34:26b when the prophet wrote, “I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing.”  God works in and through those who yield to Him. One way that God works is by supplying us with the blessings we need to live for Him.  God’s blessings are designed to enable us to love, worship and serve Him.  His blessings also enable us to love and serve others around us.  The image “showers of blessings” would suggest that God provides incredibly more blessings than we can see or imagine.  On our best days, we might see a few blessings that God has provided while many, many more go by unseen and even unacknowledged.  God’s grace and mercies are not rationed or strained.  They are lavishly bestowed upon us as His children.
            Ezekiel pointed the people of Israel to a new and better day that would come
because of God’s goodness and grace.  Even today, we always look forward in anticipation of where God is at work and what He is doing.  We can look back and see the evidence of God’s blessings and hand at work.  The blessings of the past encourage us to look forward to see where God is leading and drawing us forward.  God can change barren places into fertile ones and empty hearts into full hearts.  God can turn hearts of stone, made callous by sin and failure, into hearts that are pliable and new—hearts that live for His glory.  Give thanks today for the “showers” of blessings that God has rained down in your life.  Give thanks for the new heart He has given you through the work of Jesus at the cross.  Lead with your blessings each day.  Look forward and lean into opportunities to use your blessings to serve Him. Have a great Monday!