Feelings, Facts & Faith (3)

Proverbs 3:5–6 HCSB

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; 6 think about Him in all your ways, and He will guide you on the right paths.

The Source of Feelings and the Soil of Faith

The Heart

In both the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT) the word “heart” is used to refer to the whole of the innermost part of the human, NOT merely the emotions.

Culturally

However, in the twenty-first century English the word “heart” is used to express the emotions as an individual compartment of the inner part of the human.

It is common for Americans to divide humans into the physical and the metaphysical.

While this is a widespread insight, the way most Americans compartmentalize the internal (metaphysical) aspect of humans is diverse from many other cultures.

We Americans tend to see people as having two separate parts, wherein one part is the emotions, which we refer to as the heart, then a brain, which houses the mind.

The Bible does not divide man so easily – it focuses on all three making up the whole of a being – this is Biblically called the “heart.”

Biblically

When both the Old and New Testaments speak about the heart, it never means merely human feelings (emotions).

The Biblical word “heart,” is the inner aspect of a man, made of three parts all together, with the primary part: the,

1) Mental Process, which is the major part (where action & reaction take place), which is to lead a person in their life.

2) Emotions (which only process as reaction), as icing to enrich our lives.

3) Will, the seat of the will (discretionary, volitional, decision-making) where decisions are made between the rational and the emotive.

Mark 12:30–31 NKJV

30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

The following excerpts, though thorough, are by no means exhaustive.

Strong’s Dictionary

According to Strong’s, the Hebrew word lebab (3824) is rendered: “heart” (as the most interior organ); “being, think in themselves,” “breast,” “comfortably,” “courage,” “midst,” “mind,” “unawares,” and “understanding.”

Strong’s Greek Dictionary, states that the Greek word kardia (2588) is rendered: “heart,” i.e. (figuratively), the thoughts or feelings (mind); also (by analogy) the middle.1

Vines- OT

The Hebrew word Lebab (3824), rendered “heart” is the seat of desire, inclination, or will and can be the seat of the emotions.  The “heart” could be regarded as the seat of knowledge and wisdom and as a synonym of “mind.”  This meaning often occurs when ‘heart” appears with the verb “to know,” “Thus you are to know in your heart...” (Deut. 8:5, NASB); and “Yet the Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive [know]…” (Deut. 29:4, KJV; RSV, “mind”).  Solomon prayed, “Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad...” (1 Kings 3:9; cf. 4:29).  Memory is the activity of the “heart,” as in Job 22:22: “…lay up his [God’s] words in thine heart.”

Vine’s New Testament Dictionary

According to Vine’s:

The Greek word kardia (2588), rendered “heart” (English, “cardiac,”), is the chief organ of physical life (“for the life of the flesh is in the blood,” Lev. 17:11), occupies the most important place in the human system.  By an easy transition, the word came to stand for man’s entire mental and moral activity, both the rational and the emotional elements.

In other words, the heart is used figuratively for the hidden springs of the personal life.  The Bible describes human depravity as in the “heart”, because sin is a principle which has its seat in the center of man’s inward life, and then ‘defiles’ the whole circuit of his action, Matt. 15:19, 20.  On the other hand, Scripture regards the heart as the sphere of Divine influence, Rom. 2:15; Acts 15:9….

The heart, as lying deep within, contains “the hidden man,” 1 Pet. 3:4, the real man.  It represents the true character but conceals it (J. Laidlaw, in Hastings’ Bible Dic.).  As to its usage in the NT it denotes (a) the seat of physical life, Acts 14:17; Jas. 5:5; (b) the seat of moral nature and spiritual life, the seat of grief, John 14:1; Rom. 9:2; 2 Cor. 2:4; joy, John 16:22; Eph. 5:19; the desires, Matt. 5:28; 2 Pet. 2:14; the affections, Luke 24:32; Acts 21:13; the perceptions, John 12:40; Eph. 4:18; the thoughts, Matt. 9:4; Heb. 4:12; the understanding, Matt. 13:15; Rom. 1:21; the reasoning powers, Mark 2:6; Luke 24:38; the imagination, Luke 1:51; conscience, Acts 2:37; 1 John 3:20; the intentions, Heb. 4:12, (cf.) 1 Pet. 4:1; purpose, Acts 11:23; 2 Cor. 9:7; the will, Rom. 6:17; Col. 3:15; faith, Mark 11:23; Rom. 10:10; Heb. 3:12.  The heart, in its moral significance in the OT, includes the emotions, the reason, and the will.3

The world says:

Trust your heart

Follow your heart

The word says:

GUARD your heart

Proverbs 4:23 NIV

23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

Proverbs 4:23 HCSB

23 Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.

Proverbs 4:23 NKJV

23 Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.

Why must our heart be guarded?

1) Your heart can fool you.

Jeremiah 17:9 NKJV

9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?

Example: Buyer’s remorse

Two Great Disappointments in Life:

Not Getting What You Want

Getting What You Want

Proverbs 21:2 ESV

2 Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.

Proverbs 12:15 NKJV

15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, But he who heeds counsel is wise.

Proverbs 14:12 NKJV

12 There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.

Deuteronomy 29:18–19 NKJV

18 so that there may not be among you man or woman or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations, and that there may not be among you a root bearing bitterness or wormwood; 19 and so it may not happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall have peace, even though I follow the dictates of my heart’—as though the drunkard could be included with the sober.

1 John 1:8 NKJV

8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Romans 8:7 NKJV

7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.

2) The Heart will hold you in condemnation

1 John 3:19–20 NKJV

19 And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. 20 For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.

1 John 3:21–22 NKJV

21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. 22 And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.

1 John is a letter about grasping for certainty in salvation. John writes “that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13) and gives a series of indicators to tells us how we can be certain we truly belong to the Lord.

1 John 5:13 NKJV

13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

3) The Heart is Where God Speaks/Connects

Galatians 4:3–8 NKJV

3 Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. 4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” 7 Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. 8 But then, indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods.

Philippians 4:6–7 NKJV

6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Psalm 26:1–2 ESV

1 Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering. 2 Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and my mind.

Psalm 42:6–8 NKJV

6 O my God, my soul is cast down within me; Therefore I will remember You from the land of the Jordan, And from the heights of Hermon, From the Hill Mizar. 7 Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me. 8 The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, And in the night His song shall be with me— A prayer to the God of my life.

4) The Heart is Home to the Spirit of God

1 John 2:27 NKJV

27 But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.

Contemporary English Version But Christ has blessed you with the Holy Spirit. Now the Spirit stays in you, and you don't need any teachers. The Spirit is truthful and teaches you everything. So stay one in your heart with Christ, just as the Spirit has taught you to do.

1 John 2:27 AMP

27 But as for you, the anointing (the sacred appointment, the unction) which you received from Him abides [permanently] in you; [so] then you have no need that anyone should instruct you. But just as His anointing teaches you concerning everything and is true and is no falsehood, so you must abide in (live in, never depart from) Him [being rooted in Him, knit to Him], just as [His anointing] has taught you [to do].

1 Corinthians 6:19–20 NKJV

19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

5) The Heart is the Soil Where Faith Grows

Romans 10:9–10 NKJV

9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

1.  To believe in your heart means to believe apart from your mind and your body.  Thinking is of the mind; believing is of the heart.  Believing in your heart means believing independent of what your five physical senses may indicate.

2.  To believe in your heart means “to live in accordance with.”  If you really believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, then you will live in accordance with who you are in Christ.  You will live in accordance with who you are, what you have, and what you can do because Jesus is alive today, and because God has identified you with Him.

3.  To believe in your heart means to act on God’s Word.  The word “believe” is an action verb.  Believing is the equivalent to taking action.  The purpose of believing and speaking is so that you can put God’s Word into practice.  Believing refers to practicing the Word of God.  Believing refers to taking action on the words that you have been speaking.  The real evidence of your belief is the way you act.

Closing:

1 John 1:6–9 NKJV

6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.