A new heart and a new spirit! Yay!

Ezekiel 36, 37
Psalm 110
Revelation 19

SOAP - A new heart and a new spirit! Yay!

Scripture: Ezekiel 36:26-27
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. And I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

Observation
Is this pretty much the same as what God does for us through Jesus now? When we turn to God and fully trust him, the Holy Spirit gives us a new heart, and a new spirit, right? I guess this is pretty straight forward... with out God our hearts are selfish, ungrateful, not so good; our spirit is pretty much dead. With God, our hearts are filled with his love, kind and giving; our spirit is alive and we become people filled with the fruit of the spirit... love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control.

Application
In my life, I get it - trust God! It's the only way. I have lots of evidence that God is just waiting there with blessings, waiting for me to rely on Him, follow Him. Yet every day is a struggle between what I know is good and right; and what I "want", trying to do things my way. When I try things my way things don't go horribly and terribly wrong. I've never been really rebelious, etc. It's not as though I just run amuck in life breaking the law and trampling people in my path. In a way I wonder if that makes it all the more tempting to try my way instead of God's way. If I choose my way, there are no convictions about how to wisely use my time, how to treat my loved ones, how to treat strangers, being a polite driver, talking to people about the Lord. My way is easy and it's not filled with bad stuff, so it looks pretty darn appealing. But its not nearly, not even one billionth of the blessing of any one moment of time spent following God's way. If I just think of the ripple of blessings I see when I follow God's way, it's amazing. And I know there are things happening that I don't even know about. People are blessed by our actions and we never realize it. All those blessings combined... WOW! Duh, God's way is THE BEST WAY! And yet, as I go through this day, I'm sure "Kristy's way" will make itself known...

Prayer
Dear Lord please I pray, hear my prayer: Please help us all let go of our own ways, turn our hearts over to you, so that your can give us a new heart and a new spirit. Lord we look to you for strength to follow your way. Thank you Lord. Amen.

Just some general thoughts on the scripture:

1 - This is a really random thing to wonder about, but I can't help it... Ezekiel talks about the mountains of Israel. Is God happy with them and feeling sorry for them because they are desolate, or is he mad at them? Sounds like he kinda feels sorry for them and wants to restore them. But then he says "you will never again deprive them of their children" as if the mountains have done a bad thing. I'm confused. I'm gonna assume that there are no ill feelings toward the mountains of Israel.

2 - LOVE it that God is talking to mountains. Not sure what significance that has. But I love the mountains so I'm proud that God talked to them. :-)

3 - Who were all the dead people that God brought back to life? People that used to be part of Israel?

4 - So let me make sure I know what's going on here. Some of the people of Israel have moved out of the land (the mountains of Israel?) and settled all around. And some have died. The Lord is going to bring them all back together in the restored mountains of Israel and make them prosper? Did that ever happen? What time period is this? Wait... I just looked it up in a book Hugh has about understanding the Bible. Ezekiel was during the exile so I'm guessing Israel was eventually restored. Or maybe not. I think I'm confused about what this book means by the "exile". I'll figure all this out eventually. :-)

5 - It says there will be an everlasting covenant, and David will be prince forever. So what happened? Did they refuse to obey God again and He gave up on them and sent Jesus to save everyone?

Wow, I feel like I should know this stuff. I knew I was kinda clueless, especially with the old testament, but this Bible study is really letting me see how clueless I am, which is good. I'm excited to learn!

6 - Well, Revelation is still just WEIRD! There is a rider called "Faithful and True" on a white horse. Then they say only he knows his name. Then his name is "Word of God". And then it's "King of Kings, Lord of Lords". A little consistency please? Confusing.

7 - I don't understand the symbolism of the wedding of the lamb, the fine linen, the wedding super, etc. (hah, I don't understant most of the symbolism of Revelation... not sure why I feel the need to point it out in this case, maybe because I feel like I should know and I don't.)

8 - Who is eating the flesh of all these kings, generals, horses, riders, all the people, etc? And why?

9 - Birds gorged themselves on the flesh of the devil and his army? Just weird.