Heart

In 2005 my dad had major heart surgery, a quadruple bypass that cleared up blockages in his arteries that were causing him serious health issues. For many years he remained relatively healthy. But just this past Christmas season, we had another major health scare involving my dad’s heart. He is 84 years old and had been suffering from shortness of breath and a number of other issues. His quality of life was dwindling. On Christmas Eve he was in a doctor’s office when his heart rate plummeted. It eventually dropped to 22 beats per minute, which is extremely low. He was admitted to hospital and I took a four hour trip to be with him, and I ended up spending Christmas Eve and most of Christmas Day with him at the hospital while they assessed him and got his heart rate under control. A few days later he had a pacemaker installed to control his heart rate and his healing began. Now just a few short weeks later, his health has improved, he had new stamina and feels better than he has felt in years. Our heart is essential to our survival and it controls every system in our bodies.

We often hear in The Bible mention of our hearts. In Psalm 51:10  “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me”.  And in Ezekial 36:26 “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.” Now in these verses, God is not going to take your heart out of your chest and give you a new and clean one, so what is going on here? Where is our real heart?

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We know that God talks about our hearts many times and in Exodus He even hardens the heart of the Pharoah when Moses is attempting to get His people freed from slavery. But we know from modern medical research, that if you have a hard heart, you are probably near death. So God cannot be talking about our real heart! Instead, God is talking about our mind and our thoughts when He talks about our hearts, and if you read carefully, as you always should when you read His Words, you will understand that.

In fact our hearts in The Bible is much more than just our minds. It is in fact the “Centre of the Hidden Emotional-Intellectual-Moral Activity,” which is quite a mouthful! But you see this over and over again. Jesus tells us in Matthew 12:34: “O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things?  for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” Now we know the heart doesn’t speak, either figuratively or literally, but the brain does control speech, so this makes sense. King Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, tells us in Proverbs 16:23 “The heart of the wise teacheth his mouth, and addeth learning to his lips.” Again, our hearts do not speak, but our minds do allow for speech.

So while our heart, beating in our chest, is essential to life, it is not the absolute most important part of our body according to The Bible. We are told to have wisdom over and over again in The Bible, and wisdom comes through the brain. Our knowledge and our learning also is controlled by the brain and so we need to guide it correctly. We also need to look after our real heart, as my dad did, so that we can continue to live healthy and prosperous lives. In fact we need to look after everything, body and mind and treat our bodies as the temple that God wants us to live in.

God Bless

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The Great Controversy Ended :

The Great Controversy gives a startling overview of the mighty conflict between Christ and Satan from its origins in heaven thousands of years ago to its conclusion on earth in the days just ahead of us. This still-timely book reveals how God will ultimately rid the universe of evil and make all things new.