Ezekiel 11:20
That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
Ezekiel 11:20 rests on the promise that God will give His people oneness of heart and put a new, responsive heart and spirit within them. He takes away the stony heart out of the flesh and gives a heart of flesh in its place. Those thus renewed will walk in His statutes and keep and do His ordinances. They shall be His people, and He will be their God in covenant relationship with them.
That obedience springs from inward renewal by grace, from conversion and an indwelling Saviour, and not from rigid law-keeping alone. God puts His laws in the mind and writes them in the heart, so that those made His people delight in His law. The transformed heart enthrones God and displaces selfishness. From it flows practical obedience and unselfish service shaped by Christ's love.
The promise illustrates the new birth through Jesus that is necessary to be saved and to enter God's kingdom. This new birth and transformed life fit people for God's kingdom. It was held out to Nicodemus, with the figure of the wind, to reveal the nature of Christ's work on earth and His heavenly kingdom. Even a just and honorable person must experience it, since strict obedience by itself cannot secure entrance. The chapter is a prophecy to be studied carefully and prayerfully, warning that those who resist instruction and refuse to remove the obstacles their own wrongdoing places before others may have God turn His face from them.