Day 5

Hungering and thirsting for righteousness is a consequence of a change in our hearts.

‘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.’ (EZEKIEL 36:26)

I have been asked the question, ‘What am I supposed to do as a Christian? Give me a list of activities that give expression to my Christian life.’ I appreciate the question, but there’s a great danger to approaching the Christian life from this perspective. The real issue of the New Testament is about what we are intended to be. What we are intended to do must be a natural expression of what we are intended to be.

The joy of Christian living is that we are not driven by the imposition of external rules, but by the outworking of a changed heart which gives changed appetites and changed abilities. When God spoke to Ezekiel in the Old Testament about the New Covenant, He described it as putting ‘a new Spirit in you.’

The Old Covenant essentially changed people’s behaviour by the application of rules and laws. It was externally imposed. Our daily disposition through the New Covenant is not seeking for rules which express the effects of our Christian life, but for a deepening relationship that is the cause of our Christian life.

Lord, make your life preeminent in me, as I look to you and trust you each day.