Reading
SAA Notes
Our salvation is how God shows the holiness of His great Name! Verses 24-27 are ones read at baptism services, because they contain the promise that Christ fulfilled. He has sprinkled us clean!
SJA Notes
* God Above, we would know You better today – please teach us from Your word.
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.”
God called His people to honor Him in exile, to seek the good of the place they were exiled to, to pray for the city they were in.
God was concerned that His people would HALLOW and HONOR His Name while in exile.
As we read here, they did not bear His Name well.
What is God’s solution to this problem, when even His own people cannot keep His Name holy?
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.”
But how will this happen?
How do we get new hearts and new spirits?
Jesus gives us the answer in John 3,
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Our hearts must be reborn, our spirits made new.
Onwards in John 3,
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Jesus is the answer.
Jesus brings new life, He takes away our bondage to sin, He gives us freedom to walk in obedience, to Hallow and Honor His Name.
And we will see onwards in Ezekiel, that the gift He sent us, God in the Person of the Spirit, is who breathes new life into dry bones.
* Gracious Father,
Thank You that You are our God, we are Your people.
May we honor and hallow Your Name this day.
Thank You that in Jesus we are born again, hearts and spirits made new.
What a hope we have in You!
Amen.