Friday, January 11, 2002
Dr. Christiaan Barnard died recently - a doctor who made medical history. He performed the first successful heart transplant in human history. Since then, the procedure has become much more advanced as a way to extend the life of someone with a failing heart. I've got friends whose lives were radically changed by a heart transplant - an operation from which they recovered in surprisingly short time. I mean, it's pretty amazing to think that a surgeon can literally put a new heart in someone. Of course, heart transplants have been going on since long before Dr. Barnard's historic surgery.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "Heaven's Cardiology."
God's been in the business of changing hearts for a long time. If you know a heart that could use some changing right now, start praying for that miracle every day.
In Ezekiel 36:26, our word for today from the Word of God, the Lord explains the miracle of a heart transplant from heaven. He says, "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." So, God turns hard hearts into soft hearts. In Proverbs 21:1, the Bible says, "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord; He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases." One example of that is when the Jews were stuck in captivity in a foreign land, unable to go back. But "the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus, king of Persia" - and so a pagan king opened the door for the Jews to go home.
Our God is a heart-changing God. Recently, Bob came to me at a dinner and he showed me a letter his now 19-year-old daughter wrote when she was just 11. Bob is now a representative for a mission organization. But in 1994 he was, as he said, a lost and bitter rancher. He told me he was well on his way to becoming an alcoholic by the age of 15, into pornography, and ultimately so deep into drugs that he thought the only good dose was an overdose. Now he married a Christian girl and had three daughters, but went on living for himself. In 1990, Bob lost his home and 24,000 acres of ranchland that had been passed on to him by his father.
Bob said that on the morning of October 19, 1994, he was a bitter, drug-addicted rancher. What he didn't know was what was going on between his youngest daughter and God. At a camp in July of that same year, she wrote a letter to God that said, "My dad isn't a Christian. I can't stand the thought of my dearly beloved Father going to hell and living in torment. Please help me." So, she prayed for her father's heart to change. That day, after two friends had asked him separately, "Why don't you take it to the Lord?", Bob finally got his 11-year-old daughter out of school to show him the way to Jesus. He was gloriously reborn that day - and instantly transformed.
Our God is a heart-changing God. Why not believe Him to be that for you? Sometimes, God will work through something you say to the person whose heart needs changing. Other times, it's time to be still and just let God work. He'll let you know which time it is.
Right now, you may be about to give up hope that your situation will ever change - because there's a person there who it seems will never change. Don't underestimate heaven's Heart Surgeon. He does heart transplants - often in answer to our prayers. And the results are miraculous!