“Therefore, say to the people of Israel what I, Lord Yahweh, say: I will not take action for your sake, people of Israel, but for the sake of the honour of my holy name, which you have caused to be slandered among the nations wherever you have gone. I am going to magnify the holiness of my great name, which you have greatly dishonoured before the eyes of foreign nations. And when I magnify my holiness in you before their eyes, the nations will know that I am Yahweh. I, Lord Yahweh, have spoken.

I will take you from every nation and country and bring you back home to your own land.

I will sprinkle purifying water over you, and you will be cleansed from all the filth of your past.

I will wash you clean from the defilement of worshipping false gods.

I will graciously give you a new, tender heart and put a new, willing spirit inside you.

I will remove your hard heart of stone and give you an obedient, responsive heart instead.

I will put my Holy Spirit in you to empower you to keep my laws and to live by them.

You will be my people and I will be your God.”

Ezk. 36:22-28 TPT

I was brought up going to Sunday School or church every Sunday. By the time I was 16 years old I was convinced I would never be good enough to be acceptable to God and there was nothing I could do about it. Church was becoming increasingly boring and irrelevant and I was seriously thinking of giving up on it all together.

Then I went on a Christian holiday camp. I can’t now imagine what made me choose that camp as it was all outdoors activities, sailing, canoeing, hiking, camping etc and I was not an outdoors activities type of person. But I went. And at that camp I met too remarkable people. One was my group leader and the other was the camp chef. And these two people stood out because right from the very moment we met, they genuinely acted like people who really cared about me, even though they really knew nothing about me at all. I had never met such loving people. As the camp went on I could see that what was special about these two people was Jesus presence in them. It is hard to explain but I could really see Jesus in these two people and it became clear that it was Jesus who was loving me and accepting me, just as I was, through these two people. And I knew I wanted to stay in that love, and be empowered to love others like that, for the rest of my life. So I went to a quiet place and asked Jesus to be lord and saviour of my life. And I knew His answer was yes!

Shortly after that I was baptised and became a member of my home church. I joined the youth group hoping to get some insight into how to live the Christian life. At one of the Bible studies the youth group ran I can remember asking one of the leaders what you needed to do as a Christian. He said, “Read the Bible and do what it says.” So that is what I attempted to do for very many years.

When I became and adult I got married, completed an honours degree and doctorate in science and began a career as a research scientist in West Germany..

During that time, I read the Bible, was in home groups that studied and discussed the Bible, and listened to sermons on Bible passages and I can honestly say it had little impact. I knew there was still a huge gap between discipleship as I read about in the Bible and what I could do, but I could not understand how to bridge that gap. So my Christianity became performance based and I was not happy with that but could not see another way.

One day, as I was sitting in church service at an American Military Base Church in West Germany, the preacher started to talk about the power of God’s love to transform our lives. He went on to quote a passage from a children’s story called “The Velveteen Rabbit” by Margery Williams.

The main character in the story is a stuffed velveteen rabbit, a child’s toy. The scene he quoted was this discussion between the children’s toys:

“”What is REAL?” Asked the Rabbit one day, , when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become REAL.”

“Does it hurt?” Asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse, “you become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

“I suppose you are Real?” Said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

“The Boy’s Uncle made me Real,” he said. “That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

In those words I heard God saying to me that His love for me was gong to make me into the real person He created me to be, the loving person He created me to be, and that assurance renewed and strengthened my conviction that Jesus was the answer I needed.

My husband and I had our first child, moved to Tasmania, had a second child, and then moved to NSW. There we joined a large vibrant Church. I had stopped working when I had the kids but gradually began working again, running Biology lab classes.

One Sunday, in a prayer time at the end of sermon on commitment, I re-confirmed my commitment to follow Jesus. As I did that I was suddenly aware of God’s presence. It was like He was sitting in the pew behind me and He leant forward to me and said, “I want you to go to Bible College.”

As it happened, our church had a Bible College, training ministers, on site. But I was totally taken aback by the idea. “I can’t I replied. I’m a scientist with all that training and just restarting my science career. People will think I am crazy if I give all that up! No, I can’t do it!” God did not reply. He did not need to. I knew what He wanted and the choice was mine to make. It took me quite some weeks. Every Sunday in church I would be aware of God’s Presence, just behind me, waiting for me to say yes. And I would present the same argument knowing deep down that it was pointless.

I thought maybe discussing the idea with my husband would be a way of getting out of it but he just told me to do what I wanted to do and he would support me. So I decided to go and talk to the head of the Bible College in our church and see if she would refuse to take me. So I went in and told her how I had experienced God telling me to go to college, and explained how this seemed a crazy waste of all my science training. Then I pulled out my trump card. I was not suitable material , I told her, to go to college and train to be a minister. I was largely just pretending to be a Christian. Sure I came to church most Sundays, and went to a small group Bible Study, but except when my circumstances demanded it, I did not read my Bible and did not pray. Not only that, I did not want to. The Bible made no real sense to me and my prayers were useless. I thought this was bound to get me barred from college and packed off to get my act together. How could a hopeless Christian like me train for the ministry? But she just looked at me and smiled and said, “We can deal with that. When would you like to start?” So I left science and went to Bible College.

One of the first subjects I did at Bible College was a guide in how to prepare sermons. The first assignment we had in this subject was to prepare all the notes and information we would need to write a sermon on Ezekiel chapter 37. And the first thing we were instructed to do when preparing a sermon was to read the chapters that came before and after the passage for the sermon. So I read Ezekiel chapter 36. When I got to verse 26 I read

“I will graciously give you a new, tender heart and put a new, willing spirit inside you. I will remove your hard heart of stone and give you an obedient, responsive heart instead.” Ezk. 36:26 TPT

And as I read this verse it was like the words were written in bright neon lights, to make the point they were just for me. I recognised God was making the point that this was an offer He was making to me personally on that day. I knew my heart had become hardened and I could not love others in the way I wanted to so I most enthusiastically said. “Yes please! Do that in me!”

The first thing I noticed was that it was like a great burden had been lifted from me. I did not have to find a way to become the person God wanted me to be, He was going to do it in me! I could relax and stop pretending I knew how to be a Christian.

So was this accomplished just like that? Was I suddenly all God wanted me to be? Was I suddenly completely holy?

The answer is yes and no. Yes God has cleansed me from all sin, and given me a new responsive heart and spirit, joined to His Holy Spirit, and He is my God. But this is a HUGE HUGE HUGE gift. So big it is really impossible to describe much less experience and live in in one day. And God’s ways of doing things are often so different from what I know and expect, though always better. The only thing I can liken it to is going to live in a foreign country where you don’t even know the language. It takes time to learn a new language and new culture and new ways of doing things. We take for granted that so many of the things we do are normal and have so many habits that we are not even aware of. And that’s ok. God knows that. What He wants is a chance to be with you and in you, in everything you say and do so that TOGETHER you can become the person He created you to be. A child of God, made in God’s image. It is both an immediate change and a life journey. And God loves to journey, to do life, with His people.

“I will sprinkle purifying water over you, and you will be cleansed from all the filth of your past.

I will wash you clean from the defilement of worshipping false gods.

I will graciously give you a new, tender heart and put a new, willing spirit inside you.

I will remove your hard heart of stone and give you an obedient, responsive heart instead.

I will put my Holy Spirit in you to empower you to keep my laws and to live by them.

You will be my child and I will be your God.”

If there is one passage in the Bible that describes the Gospel, for me it is this one, Ezekiel 36:25-28. And it is God’s gift of love to us, and ALL God’s work from beginning to end. All you need to do is agree, accept this amazing gift, open it and live in it with Him.

We could spend a lifetime exploring what this passage means in practice and how it relates to the rest of Scripture but the one thing I want to make clear to you today is that it is ALL God’s work, every single bit of it. All a gift from His heart of love. And if you want it it is yours now, today.

So today God is making an offer to you:

“I will sprinkle purifying water over you, and you will be cleansed from all the filth of your past.

I will wash you clean from the defilement of worshipping false gods.

I will graciously give you a new, tender heart and put a new, willing spirit inside you.

I will remove your hard heart of stone and give you an obedient, responsive heart instead.

I will put my Holy Spirit in you to empower you to keep my laws and to live by them.

You will be my child and I will be your God.”

Is that what you want too?