My Daily Devotional

Be Reborn

“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do.”
Acts 7:51

These are some of the teachings of Stephen to the Sanhedrin just before he was stoned to death. These people were not willing to change their pagan ways and listen to new insights, new approaches and new ideas? They were not teachable in any way. Their hearts were hardened to the words of Jesus Christ that Stephen was trying to convey to them. The strong words “stiff-necked” and “hard-hearted” certainly tells us how inflexible and non-responsive they really were. We can see how the Sanhedrin were, and need to ask ourselves if we would consider ourselves to be as un-teachable as they were. Are we open to new insights, new approaches and new ideas? Most of us would want to answer “yes”, that we are teachable, but just how valid is our response. So often we have hardened our hearts, and have stiffened our necks to the point that we don’t or won’t consider a change in our thinking and attitude. In such a condition we are not open to new ideas, nor are we open to the transforming work of the Spirit of God in our lives. When God comes into our heart we must be ready to be transformed, and be made into a new creature. We must be willing to throw off the old self and put on the new self. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10. We must be willing to change the patterns of our life, and change our attitudes and behavior both in public and private. We must be willing to become the kind of people that God would want for us to become. We need to be committed to our new born self and ask God to reveal to us what attitudes and behaviors that He would have us change.