The Heart


The successes we have in the kingdom of God are more a matter of our behavior from the heart than anything else we do. God relates to us spiritually and interacts with our “heart”. He wants us to interact with him the same way.

Gen 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Gen 6:6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

Gen 8:21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

The heart is an unknown for most of us. It is commonly believed that men are the least knowledgeable about how the heart works, and the emotional sensitivity of ladies make them much more aware of the notions within the heart: they often can say what they “feel” while men very often have to stop and really think hard to understand what is within the heart. Often, men just do not consider it at all.

Most of us recognize that emotions are connected to our internal thinking; our subconscious responses to stimuli often provoke an emotional response. This is what the Bible refers to as the heart. It is not the emotional seat (that is the belly or bowels); it is not the conscious logical thinking process (that is the mind) it is the underlying set of conditions that govern how you perceive everything. The conscious thoughts we have arise from these parameters that are in our “heart”. Those parameters are learned from our upbringing and our understanding of “truth”.
In fact, we are strongly cautioned to watch out for what goes into the training of children, and what adults digest as thinking material:

Pro 4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

ADDICTIONS AND BAD HABITS ARE ALMOST ALWAYS GOING TO STOP YOU FROM HEARING YOUR HEART.

The story of Noah reveals to us that God not only has emotional responses from His heart, but those responses can be influenced by the behavior of people. Noah offered a burnt offering of thanks out of gratitude for being saved by God. Because of this response from a man who followed God’s nature closely, God changed his mind about how he would relate to his creation after that. What God said in Gen 8:21 is that because the heart is evil, he would have to do something else about that…

Exo 4:21 And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.

Very often we are not aware that we make decisions in life based on our heart. Many marriages suffer because the heart of a person can be hardened toward another. When that happens,thoughts about the spouse become excessively logical and harsh. The emotional content of a relationship can melt away under these conditions. Suspicions and judgment follow, and compassion may disappear. There is no contact with the part of a person, the heart, which tells your partner what your true thinking about them might be.

You see, when you have a relationship, it is because your inner thinking, the parameters you have had set in your own psychology by close contact with a person point out to you that you must include this person in life to be happy. You may have no idea that this has happened until something triggers the mental thought that causes you to say”I need this person in my life”. This is felt as an emotional response. We call that emotional response a particular signal word: we “love” someone. The same process exists for family, but the results are not the same. How we love family is very different because the emotional response is different and the parameters in our “heart” are different. WHEN WE DISCOVER WE LOVE GOD, THERE IS AN EMOTIONAL RESPONSE, OFTEN SEVERAL RESPONSES. THIS LOVE FOR GOD IS DIFFERENT THAN ANYTHING WE HAVE EXPERIENCED BEFORE KNOWING GOD.

The response to God’s love for us is important. We see that Noah expressed his emotions as an act that would please God. Men very often show emotion this way. We do things for people rather than expressing emotions verbally or with physical contact. Women are commonly facile at expressing emotional responses and so this leads to understanding through vocalization and physical contact.

God hardened Pharaoh’s heart resulting in a loss of compassion and mercy for the people of Israel. He would no longer be concerned with the well being of these slaves. This cut off the possibility that Moses would be effective in convincing the Pharaoh to let Israel go free. THE LINES OF COMMUNICATION WERE ERASED AS A RESULT OF A HARDENED HEART.

What we must develop as a Christian is a heart that is not hardened toward the kingdom of God. Realizing that our communication with God is spiritual, and that our hearts are affected by this communication and we see that this is the crux of a relationship with God.

Several things to consider:
1) God provided rules of behavior so that we would not be offensive to his “heart”, as the people in Noah’s day were. These rules are called the Law of Moses.
2) God saw that even providing a correct upbringing by the law did not guarantee that our heart would be in it, and he would harden his heart toward us. So he changed the system again.
3) God came as a human partly so we could relate to him better. A spirit is a hard thing to make a solid connection with if it is not close to our own “perception” of life. The man, Jesus the Messiah, was just that connecting figure we needed. We know that he has emotions like us, feels pain, sickness and even death like us. We can connect better because God seems much more like us now.
4) GOD KNEW THAT RULES AND PROCESSES ALONE WOULD NOT KEEP US IN LOVE WITH HIM. SO HE GAVE US PART OF HIS SPIRIT TO LIVE INSIDE US WITH OUR OWN SPIRIT. This way, God could interact with us emotionally, and at a level that affects the heart directly. It is so important to have the Holy Ghost within you so that this can happen in your life. Without this, your relationship with God is difficult to maintain, and your understanding of him is diminished. In fact, you cannot become part of the “bride of Christ” in resurrection without it.

One of the most important signals for us that we are doing well in the kingdom of God is that we love our brothers in the kingdom of God. (I John 4:12 )This emotional acceptance of (often) strangers is not the result of our own “parameters” but the influence of God’s heart within us. The spirit of God modifies how we relate to everyone else. A newly filled Christian will often go around hugging total strangers and have a genuine feeling of brotherly love for everyone.

This is the plan that God had in mind to change things for us. This is how God wants us to relate to Him. If you have not yet received the Holy Ghost, you cannot fathom this emotional connection because it is only from God. It cannot be learned by human experience. If you do have the Holy Ghost within, then you already are aware of this property of salvation.

What can we do to be successful in the kingdom of God? We have to maintain a relationship with God very much like the ones we maintain with other people. Family, spouses and close friends always make an effort to accommodate, have compassion for and consideration of the others in their life. We have to do this same thing for God.

WE DO NOT POSSESS THE SKILL TO DO THAT AUTOMATICALLY. WE ATTEND CHURCH FAITHFULLY SO THAT WE CAN HAVE THE RIGHT PARAMETERS TO PUT IN OUR HEART. PREACHING IS DESIGNED TO DO THIS.

We pray every day to keep lines of communication open with God. If you do not draw close to him, the same results occur as when you fail to talk to your own people. Marriages suffer; friends grow cold and indifferent. Family members start to leave you out of their immediate plans.
We listen to God. We read his words regularly, and the Spirit he put within us teaches us as we read.

You wish to be successful in the kingdom of God? This is how: FAITHFUL ATTENDANCE TO WORSHIP, FAITHFULLY READING THE WORD, AND PRAYING EVERY DAY. Doing this causes many things to happen: God keeps you in his immediate plans, you are constantly aware that he loves you very much, and your compassion for others grows. The spirit within you seems to bubble over onto others, and God will definitely use you to reach others.

1Jn 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
1Jn 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
1Jn 4:9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
1Jn 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1Jn 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
1Jn 4:12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
1Jn 4:13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.