Last week, in Written on the Heart, Part 8, we came to understand that law preserves sanctity of life. If we want God’s lifestyle, if we want to reflect Jesus, if we want to respond to God’s light, His law must be written on our hearts. But just how does God do this?
The rejection of God’s writing on their hearts led to the death of almost everyone who came out of Egypt under Moses. They eventually died before they reached the Promised Land because God’s people hardened their hearts the same as did the Pharaoh of Egypt.
So everybody has visual images when the stone-age is mentioned, and believe me, when I honestly say “I belong to the stone-age.” You see, where I grew up there was a lovely rocky hill which was about right for stretching the legs and exercising the lungs. It was especially good for playing hide and seek on moonlight nights, and we children knew our way around that hillside almost like mountain goats.
Of course there were loose stones lying about and cattle roaming the hillside could dislodge them on to the narrow tracks the sheep made. So unless you watched your step, you might trip on the stones and fall down the hillside a bit before you could stabilise yourself.
On the other hand, stones could be good because if your companions were out of sight, you could let them know where you were by simply picking up a loose stone and throwing it. They could tell the direction it came from and where you were.
Like you, they needed too read the grace in the law of the stones because the law of the stones was either your friend or your enemy depending on your intentions. So when God wrote His law on stones, it was either your friend or your enemy depending on your attitude and intentions, and Zechariah 7:12 warned that God’s people: “made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law.” They refused to listen even when God wrote His grace on stone that He shows “mercy unto thousands that love me and keep my commandments.” (Ez 20:6 KJV).
But stones are not the end of the story because they could not shelter you from death and pain and suffering or from the hot westerly winds that blew in summer or from the cold southerly winds that blew up from the southern arctic in winter. The law of stone was also a letter of intent, because God said through Ez 11:19 KJV: “I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and 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 judgements and do them…” (See also Ez 36:26-27 KJV).
God has said He is does not change: “For I am the Lord, I change not.” (Mal 3:6 KJV), so from the beginning to the end, His principle and intention has no change. One day, God will take away my stone-age heart and give me a new heart with His law written on it, but before He can write there, He must roll the stone away.
Will you come with me to shelter under the Rock and say a prayer together? We can say, “Please Lord, roll our stones away to make a soft place so that You can write directly on our hearts.”
Elizabeth Price
But how can we “soften” our “stony” hearts so that He can write on them? Please join us next week for Written on the Heart, Part 10.
(To access the entire “Written on the Heart” mini-series, please click here.)