‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.’
My heart is a wellspring of evil. Even the good I do is deemed evil by God, because it’s done without him. When I think something through, my reasoning is soon joined by emotion: ‘What’s in it for me?’ That’s my ‘stony heart’ doing the thinking, snubbing God. (See Job 41!)
Humanity cannot get better without God- we can’t fix our ‘stony heart.’ So Christ came in the flesh, died in the flesh, and arose in the flesh with a new heart and spirit, in the flesh. ‘I will give you a heart of flesh.’
This is that new covenant Jeremiah spoke of- an indwelling God, ‘writing his laws upon my heart.’ A day in, day out walk learns to share everything with God: ‘What’s he crossing my path with right now?’ A flesh and blood relationship with God.
How can you know yourself except by including God?
Except by ‘walking in his light?’