Devotion for Life for May 27th, 2026

New identity

When we look at Ezekiel 11:17-20, we see God willing to give to us the opportunity to be changed, to be freed from our sinful ways and to be restored into relationship with God himself. God offers to help us if we are willing to be helped. He offers to restore us into a covenant relationship instead of leaving us on a path that leads not just to personal trouble but also to communal problems.

When we look at the Bible we see both individual responsibility but also responsibility to community. Our identity is not just about ourselves; it is also connected to the wider community. To often we focus just on ourselves and our own wants and desires. We think that it is all about me or that my actions only affect myself but in reality, it affects everyone around us. It affects who we are as a family, as a community, as a people.

God’s promise of an undivided heart and a new spirit, giving us a heart of flesh, taking away the heart of stone, is not just about individual change, it is about communal change. About changing our identities from dying to alive, from condemned to forgiven, and from detestable to loved. God is willing to do that for us today and is doing this through Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit. We are made new and it affects everything.