Bishop Douglas Harrison Taylor, BA, LSW, DD
Senior Pastor
Bishop's Training for Reigning |
Spiritual Heart Transplant
And I shall give them one heart, and shall put a new spirit within them. And I shall take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 1:19
A half million adults and 6,000 children die every year because of bad hearts. Yet, says heart surgeon Dr. Jean Rosenbaum, probably no more than 5,000 hearts will be available for transplants. "This 100-to-1 ratio brings some disturbing questions. Who among the dying shall receive the gift of a new life? Are physicians competent to make this moral judgment? Who has the right to give away the heart of an ailing human whose life might be prolonged by extraordinary medical care and later revitalized by some advance in science?" There are no easy answers.
In a heart transplant, the donor is pronounced dead, brain action, respiration, reflexes, circulation and cardiac activity have ceased. The heart is then removed and given to the recipient. Suppose the donor was in the prime of life, yet willingly died, and all you had to do to receive new life was to accept the gift, freely given? Would you?
Have you ever thought of eternal life in such terms? Spiritually, the heart of man is diseased by a malady named "sin," sin that entered into the human race by one man and passed on to all men. That original sin eventually destroys your heart and life, it brings eternal death and separation from God, just as physical death brings separation from loved ones. God loved you so much He sent His Son Jesus before you were ever born.
Christ said, "No one can kill me without my consent, I lay down my life voluntarily" (John 10:18, TLB). He died in your place, giving His heart and life for you. Think of it like this: He allowed His heart to be exchanged with your diseased heart.
The moment you accept that Jesus died and rose again, and then confess Him as Lord and Savior, that spiritual heart transplant becomes effective. And He makes it available to all men. He invites you to receive new life spiritually by faith in His Son.
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