The Bible describes the human heart as “deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9).  Our natural bent is to gratify our self – thus we sin.  Sin is simply anything we do, say, or think that is not pleasing to God.  We are desperately sick with sin and we are deceitful.  Although we are capable of doing lovely, beautiful deeds, we naturally want something for ourself with every good deed we do – a return of favor or good feeling.  We are so lost that the Bible describes our heart as a “heart of stone” (Ezekiel 36:26).  There is naturally no spiritual life in us.  This is why the Bible says that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).  We all have a heart problem – it is sinful and wicked.  This affects and even infects our entire life.  But the problem is even worse than that because “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).  We all must face death and, worse, eternal punishment because of sin. 

We often dismiss our own sin by comparing the best of what we do to the worst of what others do.  The Bible clearly says when people “measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding” (2 Corinthians 10:12). Obviously, with a deceitful heart, we deceive ourselves!  We are as lost and in need of heart help as everyone else.  The solution is not in comparing ourselves with others – comparison is a rocky ground.  The solution is in comparing ourselves with God.  God actually demands perfection:   “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

Every person will cringe against the idea of God demanding perfection because “nobody is perfect.”  We know this.  Again, “all have sinned and fallen short.”  We fail each hour of each day.  Yet, we forget that one man was perfect.  

One man did fulfill God’s demand for perfection.  
Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth.  
He alone was perfect and fulfilled God’s righteous demands.  

Because of this, we each have the most amazing news given to us.  “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).  Jesus was nailed to a cross, a Roman tool of capital punishment.  He suffered and died to pay the ultimate penalty for sin.  As Jesus was punished on that cross, it was as if He became sin, our sin.  God, the Father, looking at His Son Jesus dying on that cross, placed all of our punishment on Him. Jesus became sin who knew no sin – thus we might become the righteousness of God.  God will replace our heart of stone with a new living heart.   If… 

Our heart problem is solved by repenting of our sin and believing in Jesus.  We must look at our own “works” and realize no amount of good can pay for the bad thoughts we’ve had, the bad words we’ve spoken, and the bad things we’ve done.  At the end of each good work we might do, we still have a heart problem.  You are given a promise by God that He “will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you” (Ezekiel 36:26).  If… If you will realize your lostness - your heart problem – desire to turn from your sin and turn to Jesus, believing in what He accomplished on that cross.  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).  You’ve likely read that verse before but have you ever truly let that verse read you?  Have you responded in such a way that you have believed in Jesus so that you will not perish.  “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).  “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24).  As written above, the wages of sin is death but the good news of that same verse is that “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

You can be saved from your heart problem, be given a new heart, and be freed from that eventual eternal punishment – You can have eternal life with God.   Would you repent of your sin and believe in Jesus today?