The Greatest Need for the Coming Year

by Dr. Paul Chappell

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.”

Ezekiel 36:26–28

Over and over as I counsel with people, I hear them express a longing for a change in their circumstances. So many people believe that if they just had a better job or a better marriage or better parents or a better church, their lives would be transformed. But the reality is that the biggest change anyone needs, is a change of heart. Changing external people or circumstances only provides temporary relief at best, for the problems we have arise from within, not from without.

Repeated studies into the lives of people who win large lottery jackpots reveal a consistent pattern. A great majority of those people are worse off five years later than they were before their windfall. No amount of outward change in circumstances or conditions can fix a problem that has its roots in the heart. Jesus said, “There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man” (Matthew 7:15).

More than anything else in our nation, our churches and our own lives, we need people who have a heart toward God. The things that we love most dictate how we use our time and invest our resources. If God is first, as He should be, then every decision and action will reflect our love for Him.

Today’s Growth Principle: 

If you want to experience God’s blessing and guidance, your heart must be fixed on Him.