A Whole New Heart

How are you? My friends.

Are you hurting or feeling broken?

Are you feeling indifferent with a frozen heart?

May the love, peace, and comfort of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you in abundance.

A day in winter, I was walking along a pondside. It was very cold. The pond was mostly frozen. The weather temperature of the city rarely stays low enough to turn the pond into ice. Many people were playing alongside by breaking the ice from the pond edge and throwing them towards the middle of the pond.

Countless pieces of broken ice with different shapes and sizes were all over the pond surface.

- Pictures of the frozen pond -

While appreciating the scenery of the frozen pond and watching people having fun breaking the ice, I was inspired and amazed by the wisdom of God and His unfailing love!

No matter how many pieces of the broken ice; no matter how big, how tiny, how sharp, how crumbly; however the broken pieces are overlaid with one another…

When the sun rises and shines upon the pond, when the warmth of the sun increases the temperature, all the ice pieces will melt into water form as a whole again. With such complete wholeness, we won't be able to locate which drop of water was which piece of ice anymore. No cracks will be found in the water! 

Over 70% of the earth is water;

Around 70% of the human body is also water.

Sometimes our heart is like that frozen pond.

Maybe in a season, it gets cold and hardens.

Maybe it's been broken into uncountable pieces (by ourselves, by other people, by life circumstances...)

For the LORD God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory. The LORD will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right. - Psalms 84:11 (NLT)

The love of God is shinier than the sun shines at its brilliance.

His true love, grace, and mercy melt our frozen, hardened, and broken heart into a whole, new, softened heart.

No matter how many broken pieces, the love of God gives us a whole new heart. Same heart, same elements; different form, complete, whole as new. No trace of brokenness will be found!

The ice has no control to decide for itself to stay cold and broken. When the ice meets the sun, the warmth of the sun will melt the ice.

So as you and I, when we encounter God, when our Sun (the LORD God) shines on us, we are healed. No heart is too broken for the Lord to heal. Not because of us, but because of who God is and what He has done.

Ice and Glass might look similar but they are very different.

Broken glass, even stuck back together we can still see the cracks or glue marks.

A frozen pond with broken ice, once melted by the sun, is whole as new, with no trace of cracks to be found.

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. - Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NLT)

The Bible tells us everything is a season. Only the word of God, His promises, and mercy endure forever! Winter is only a season. It will not last forever. No matter how cold the winter is, or how many days the pond has been frozen, winter will pass and spring will come. 

When we experience winter, we know that spring is coming! 

My brothers and sisters, remember what Jesus has done for us.

He laid His life for us. He took all our sins on the cross. The blood of Jesus makes atonement for us on the altar. He rose from the dead and holds the keys of death and Hades. It is finished. 

No matter how broken we are, no matter how indifferent we feel, when Jesus' glorious face shines on us, it is finished.

The love of God gives us a whole new heart!

 And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations. - Ezekiel 36:26-27 (NLT)

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Let's Pray Together:

Dear Heavenly Father, 

Thank you for being the Author of Life.

Thank you for your love toward us that you gave your only begotten Son to us.

Thank you for paying the highest ransom to redeem us.

May your face shine upon us, melt any hardened hearts, heal any broken hearts.

May your Holy Spirit touch us, convict us in repentance.

Please help us to surrender ourselves to you in unreserved obedience.

In Jesus' Name we have prayed,

Amen.

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PS...

My friend,

You may ask, what about those broken ice pieces that are left outside the pond?

Well, when the sun rises, the water rises and vaporizes into the atmosphere, forming tiny water droplets that gather to form clouds.

All the leftover pieces unite because of our Sun (the Lord God).

For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:14-18 NIV)