An ambulance rushes to a hospital. The doctors and nurses hurry to their appointed duties. The operating-room staff prepares for two operations. One operation will be on a person who has already died! (What is going on? What kind of a hospital is this?)
The siren has barely died down as the stretcher is rolled rapidly to the waiting operating-room team. On the stretcher is the body of a young man who has been killed in a car accident. His family knows he wants his body used as a “donor.” This means healthy organs from his body are to be used for other people who need them. His body is being taken to the operating room so that his healthy heart can quickly be removed and used to replace a diseased or worn-out heart in another person.
Think how complicated this type of operation must be! A team of perhaps 12 doctors, specially trained nurses, hospital equipment and sterilized rooms are all needed. All of this is required to make the operation a success. It can lengthen the life of a person whose body might still be healthy, but whose heart is diseased or worn out.
But remember, as wonderful as this kind of operation is, the results are only temporary. Some day this new heart will finally stop beating too.
Do you know we have a Physician who is greater than all of the expert heart doctors? This Great Physician is Jesus Christ. He has been giving new hearts to people for thousands of years. His “operation” is needed by everyone, because we all have the heart disease called SIN. The Bible tells us how bad our hearts really are: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Jeremiah 17:99The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9).
The Lord Jesus will replace a sinful heart only for someone who is willing - someone who knows that he is a sinner and that he needs a new heart.
Do you believe what the Bible says about your heart - that it is wicked? Do you know that the Lord Jesus is the only One who can give you a new heart? In Psalm 51:1010Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10) David prayed: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”
The Lord Jesus Christ has already done the work. He suffered and died on the cross for the sins of those who would believe in Him - for the sins of those who know that they need this “new heart.” “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” Romans 10:99That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (Romans 10:9).
After the Lord Jesus has given you a new heart, you will want to thank Him. One way you can thank Him is by saying, “I have trusted in Thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in Thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord, because He hath dealt bountifully with me.” Psalm 13:5,65But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. 6I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me. (Psalm 13:5‑6).
ML-07/11/1993