"Turn and be converted from all your crimes,
that they may be no cause of guilt for you.
Cast away from you all the crimes you have committed,
and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit."
From Ezekiel 18 we having these Living Words of God! They go well recently and today, of turning away and being converted from my "criminal" thoughts of such negativity--of thoughts that do not do me nor anyone else any good.
I have continued to make apologies to those I've wearied for years, even, with the frustrating aspects of pain and trials, for they see me in pain, they ask about the pain, they want to know if there is progress being made in the difficult, current, temporal circumstances.
Yet, when I think from not my thoughts and think from the heart and spirit, from this next step up on the stairway to heaven, I experience a new perspective.
Mercy! The desert is hot and dry, and going outside to pick produces induces quick perspiration. It is cleansing, as is turning away from and being converted from old, pointless, useless thoughts. The Lord reminds us through Ezekiel to make for ourselves--make for ourselves--a new heart and a new spirit.
Literally, we do not make anything, for the Lord is our Creator of all. He makes. Yet when His Will has replaced our wills, the making happens with each God-pivot large and small. The more we cast out what hinders us--such as our own thoughts as rather than thinking with His Thoughts--we begin to clear space, essentially, for a new heart and new spirit to be created.
We pray, though. Perhaps that is a gift given us, to "make prayer." Artists say they are "making" art. That is a more current expression as opposed to the older one of, "painting" or "taking photographs." They say they will "make art." Places the action more into the creative process: to make.
In that sense, I suppose we can make for ourselves a new heart and a new spirit, when in actuality it is the Lord doing the creating, causing the change. We have prayed and agreed to the change in whatever God-pivot we desire and "make". With whatever "crimes" (habits, sins, ways of being and thinking, attitudes, flaws) we cast away, God will enact a change, a progression, a shift in mind, heart, and soul.
We collaborate and cooperate with God when we "make" God-pivots. There is artistry in all this movement, this purposeful progression of our lives in Christ.
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