“And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”
– Ezekiel 11:19–20
This is a promise that we see in different ways in Jeremiah and Ezekiel here, we’ll see it later in Ezekiel, that God is going to restore his people. God’s going to bring them back from exile, what’s happening as Ezekiel is prophesying this, and God is promising that he’s going to transform them from the inside out.
This is what’s referred to as a promise of a new covenant, a promise that will be fulfilled in the New Testament with the coming of Jesus, who will pay the price for our sins, so that our hearts might be clean and so the way might be opened for us to be reconciled as sinners to God and for him to give us new hearts, to be born again, to use language from Jesus in John chapter three, with a new spirit in us, the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, as we prayed according to in Ezekiel 10.
God Has Given Us New Hearts
This is a promise of what you and I, all who have trusted in Jesus today, are experiencing. God has given us new hearts. He’s put an entirely new spirit inside of us. He has transformed us from the inside out in a way that leads to our transformation on a day-by-day basis, that we learn to walk in his statutes and keep his rules and obey them as his people, God as our God.
So we pray in light of Ezekiel 11:19–20, God, thank you for giving us a new heart. Thank you for changing our hearts. God, I pray for anybody listening to this right now, who’s never experienced regeneration, who’s never been born again by your Spirit through faith in Jesus, through believing, trusting in Jesus as savior and Lord of their life.
Ezekiel 11:19–20 Calls Us to Repent and Believe in the Lord
God, I pray that even right now, you would give them a new heart, that you would give them desire to trust in you. That you would put your spirit inside of them. God, for all who have repented and believed in Jesus as Lord. Who have experienced this miraculous work of regeneration, of being born again.
God, we pray that you would continue to transform us more and more today. Help us to walk in your statutes by your Spirit in us. To keep your rules by the power of your Spirit in us, to obey your word with desire for your word.
Ezekiel 11:19–20 Leads Us to Experience Transformation
God, please continually wean us off the desire for the things of this world and our own ways, our own desires. God, make our hearts more and more and more like yours. Help us to walk with you today as your people. As your children, as your sons and daughters, you as our father, you as the God over our lives. We praise you for the promise of the new covenant in Ezekiel 11. For the experience of the new covenant in each of our lives.
And God, we pray that you would help us to spread this good news to others today. God, help us to proclaim the gospel to somebody else. To share the gospel with somebody else today in ways that you do this work of regeneration, of bringing people to be born again today. God, would you do that? Would you cause somebody around us to be born again today by the power of the gospel in our lips and our lives?
Pray for Muslims in Mozambique
And God, we pray for this reality to spread to the ends of the earth, for the Makonde people of Mozambique, half a million of them, this Muslim people group with little access to the gospel.
God, we pray for new hearts, for a new spirit, your Spirit to invade. Take over the hearts of Makonde people in Mozambique, that they might know you as their God, that they might walk with you and enjoy you as your people, as your sons and daughters. In Jesus’ name we pray. In Jesus’ name we pray according to your word in Ezekiel 11:19–20. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
