Spiritual Heart Transplant
Part 2
Dr. Victoria Moots
In Ezek. 18:31 God again admonishes Israel to accept His offer of life, “Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” The Doctor is telling Israel, “You have a bad heart, and you are going to die; but I’m offering you a new heart. Why will you die? All you need to do is take my new heart.” Likewise, we have the same terminal diagnosis, so why will we die?
Now let us assume that you have been evaluated for a heart transplant and placed on a waiting list. What does it mean to be on a waiting list? It means that you are waiting around for someone who is going to be your donor, that matches you, to die. Think about that! You are waiting for someone to die in order that you may live.
Before you can receive a new heart a donor must die at the right place and the right time. In Gal. 4:4-5 we read that, “when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law.” So, when the fullness of time had come, the exact right time that God had planned, he sent his Son. What was the purpose of sending his Son? To die! For God so loved the world he sent his Son to die for us. II Cor. 6:2 says, “behold, now is the day of salvation.” Now is the time for you to receive your new heart.
The person who is put on a transplant list must carry a pager or a phone and be waiting for the call. When they hear the call that a donor has been found they must be ready to go immediately. They can’t say, “I have something I need to do first; I just can’t come today.” The donor must die at the right time and place that enables the recipient of the heart to reach that location within a very short period of time, who must go immediately or it will be too late for the transplant to be performed. This is also true spiritually; it has to be now. Now is the accepted time. The Holy Spirit calls us not only for salvation, to receive his new heart, but also to be filled with the Spirit and to be his bride. When we hear the call we must go. God had it all planned out, when to send his Son and when to call us. How do we receive the call? Through the Word. We hear his voice and we must be willing and ready to go. Just as Rebecca, we must be willing to say, “Yes I will go.” We can’t wait till tomorrow. He may come today.
Who is capable of being your donor? A donor must match, as closely as possible, the recipient’s size, and must be the right tissue and blood type. It is not possible to take an adult’s heart and transplant it into an infant. Do you understand the correlation? In the natural it must fit and be compatible. Since we cannot change, our donor must match us. We cannot make ourselves match the donor. Jesus had to match us. God’s Son had to be born of a woman, to become like us. He had to come down to earth as a baby; he had to become our tissue type. He was the Son of God, but he had to become the Son of man, to become flesh and blood. God could not put his heart in us; God’s heart would not fit. We cannot be like God. That was one of the lies of Satan in the Garden of Eden. He asked Eve, “what did God say?” She replied that she would die if she ate of or touched that tree. Satan deceived her by saying, “No, you won’t die; you will become like God.”
No, we can’t be like God; we can’t have God’s heart because the donor doesn’t match! He is the wrong tissue type. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And in v. 14: “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” The Son of God became the Son of man and so the tissue type now matches!
We could not become like God, so he became like us. Jesus said in John 10:11: “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” The donor had to die to give us life. If we are going to become his sheep, we need a lamb’s heart. It has to be a match; it must be the same tissue type. The Word of God became the Good Shepherd but also the Lamb of God (John 1:29). The Good Shepherd became the Lamb and was slain that we could have his heart.
The blood type also had to match. Jesus had to take on a body of flesh and blood to give us a new heart that was compatible. In Heb. 7:26 we see that he was not only the sacrifice (the Lamb) but he was also our High Priest. “For such a high priest became us.” He became a man, not only to have flesh and blood, but to be touched by the feeling of our infirmities. He became the perfect donor for us. He was now our blood type and tissue type and willingly gave his life for us.
The gift of a transplant should never be taken lightly in the natural or the spiritual for it requires the death of the donor. It is an incredible gift of love and life. We often quote John 3:16 without fully recognizing the value of that life that was given for us and what he went through when he left his throne in glory to become a man, to become like us. He took upon himself the form of sinful man, and he who knew no sin became sin for us. We can’t even begin to comprehend the emotional suffering that he endured in order to give us a new heart. He looked beyond the suffering of the cross to the joy that was set before him.
In Ps. 51:10 David pleaded, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” A donor heart must be “clean,” free of blocked vessels. In the natural the arteries are examined to be sure they are clean. And the size and weight of the heart is checked to see if it is appropriate and that it is not enlarged, hardened or fibrosed. The heart must be healthy with good blood flow. It is also true in the spiritual. Jesus’ heart was clean and pure; he was without sin. The Lamb of God was without blemish or spot, perfect, with a perfect heart. When we accept this heart, we become a lamb with the Lamb’s heart, a heart that desires to do the Father’s will. This is the same heart that said, “not my will but thine be done” the same heart that cried, “Father forgive them.” It is that kind of love that is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, because we now have a new, clean heart. We have the free flow of the blood of the Lamb of God in us to manifest the life of Christ. We cannot with the old creation heart have that kind of love. It is only possible with a new heart. Works could not earn a new heart, but after we receive the new heart, we are able to perform work. Our works will then be his works, for it is Christ in us.
So, as God asked Israel, “Why will ye die?” Why not agree with the Great Physician’s diagnosis of heart failure and impending death and submit to the scalpel of God’s Word and receive the gift of life-his new heart? The Donor is waiting; now is the accepted time. The Holy Spirit is calling. Can you hear the call? God has a call on your life. He wants you to have his heart to do his will. Will you say “yes?” And when you awake from surgery after your transplant this will be your testimony: “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise” (Ps. 57:7).
