New Year, New Heart

Written By Kirsten Victoria

The start of a new year is generally a time when many of us stop and reflect. As we think back on the past year, a list of aspirations and hopes for what we would like to see in the new year forms in our minds. Maybe you’re hoping for a new job opportunity or a better income. Or maybe you want to travel to a new country, or you want a new found motivation for your health. Depending on the type of person you are, you’ve either immediately dialed back your expectations, or you’ve started a game plan for all the changes you want to make this year to turn those hopes and aspirations into reality. But no matter what type of person you are, we can probably all agree that we want this new year to be better than the last.

While it’s admirable to make positive changes to our perspectives and behaviors, there’s one specific area in our lives—an integral part of who we are—that God desires to change. This area is the part of us that harbors our deepest desires and our strongest wills: our heart.

The decisions we make, the perspectives we hold, and the behaviors we tolerate in ourselves and others all flow from our hearts. In Proverbs 4:23, the Bible says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” So, if we truly want to experience something new this year—something better than what we experienced last year—we need to first allow God to make changes to our hearts. God will change our lives by changing our hearts.

At the beginning of this year, our church has been allowing God to do some deep internal renovations. We’ve been spending week after week studying the type of heart God desires us to have. God’s desire is that we would have hearts ignited by His great love for us. His desire is that our hearts would be humble, rather than destroyed by pride and jaded by unforgiveness. He wants us to have hearts of generosity and compassion—the markers of true prosperity and love in action. And God also desires that our hearts would be pure, not hardened by our failures or the failures of others. This is God’s heart for your heart!

Don’t let another year pass you by feeling obligated to do tasks for God, instead of being compelled to stay devoted by a deep love for Him. It’s not too late to allow God to rid your heart of bitterness, insecurity, shame, and the pollution of sin to make room for love. Don’t fall into the trap of keeping your heart hardened by the hurt of others in an attempt to protect yourself from more pain. You can trade your broken heart for one that can experience the fullness of His love and joy.

In Ezekiel 36:26, it says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

Many people can change many things, but only God can change a heart. Today, you can choose to do the best thing this new year: ask God to give you a new heart!



Written by Kirsten Victoria

Director of Champion Life Communications

Kirsten Victoria