The price of repairs...

From the Chat with the Chaplain column in the Finger Lakes ABATE newsletter…

My girlfriend Terri from Bath has taken what she refers to a s a mini-trip on her motorcycle to Florida, then plans to attend Sturgis, hit Colorado before heading back to NYS. As she arrived into FL, suddenly her bike quits. Some riders she met earlier at a rest stop came up and helped her get it going but after only a few miles it went dead again at a traffic light. Not knowing if it was major engine failure, electrical, transmission, she called for a tow. Something definitely wasn’t right, something was wrong on the inside and she wasn’t able to fix it herself. It was too far gone for that. Maybe it had to be replaced! Her plans had to change; she was stranded in Florida; her money was going quickly on hotel living, waiting for repairs.

Actually, a lot of us have some issues in our lives that aren't too pleasant and try to slow us down, change our plans, cost us something. Too often there is anger spewing out - or self-pity because we feel like a victim - or negative, critical attitudes. We say what we later regret we said - we do what we later regret we did - we're hooked on what we wish we could stop - we leave a trail behind us of people who have choked on the smoke we put out. And it's not that we haven't tried to fix it. From New Year's resolutions to religion to self-improvement, we've tried to fix our own lives but we've got a problem inside.

God diagnoses that problem in His book in Jeremiah 17:9 it says, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" In other words, the engine is shot, and it can't be fixed. It has to be replaced, which leads us to God's tremendous offer. Ezekiel 36:26, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you a heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit in you."

God says our heart is too darkened and hardened by sin to ever quit putting out pollution. We can certainly never get into His totally unpolluted heaven with this polluted heart we all have. Our only hope for this life - and for eternal life - is a new heart. We can't perform heart surgery on ourselves! Only the divine surgeon can do that! He stands ready to take that heart of yours that's been hardened by all the hurt and the anger and the sin and replace it with a heart that's clean and sensitive and new! He'll put His Holy Spirit in you to make you the person you've wanted to be but you never could be.

But the operation had to be paid for just as the replacement parts on my girlfriend’s bike had to be paid for - and she didn't have anything to pay it with. But to her amazement, some of God's people quietly got together and they paid the $2,600 bill. That's what Jesus was doing for you when He was agonizing on that cross. He was paying the bill for your sin; a bill you could never pay - so you could be forgiven.

You ready for a new heart? Then it's time to open your heart to Jesus Christ. I would love to help you be sure that you have begun your personal relationship with Jesus Christ - that you belong to Him. Replace your engine while your mileage is still good and you’re alive! Oh, after a 3 week delay Terri is back on the road and headed to Sturgis. Ask me about full story.

Lady di (Diane Dunning)