Thursday, March 17, 2011

The Heart (an excerpt from Napkin Chats: Counsleing over Coffee)

And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:13
For years I have been afraid to work on an engine. Whether the engine is in my car or a lawn mower, I am nervous. I have discovered that my reticence is tied to my ignorance. I simply do not know how a combustion engine works. I do not know what its parts are or what they do. My ignorance leaves me unwilling to try to repair my engines.
In my years of pastoral ministry, I have found that a similar ignorance leaves God’s people in a state of disrepair. Many Christians, and even ministers, do not really understand how God has designed the human heart. We cannot articulate its parts and we do not really grasp how each part works. Therefore when faced with a significant struggle in our own life or the life of a friend, we do not know how to bring real change in their lives. Those who are aware of their ignorance refer the struggling friend to a ‘professional’ who may or may not know how to help.
As I think of my fear of working on an engine, I suppose it is good that I let someone else work on my engines. I could do some real damage if I tried to repair an engine while remaining ignorant of its proper working. In the same way, some Christians try to help people when they themselves do not know how the heart works. They offer counsel to hurting people but their counsel is based on an inadequate understanding of How God has made us. With this errant perspective, their counsel is doomed to failure. This leaves many Christians with the conclusion that counseling is of no use. They continue in their struggles, never finding the relief that God provides.
Ephesians 4:14-16 tells us:
As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
When God’s gifted leaders speak the truth in love, Christian individuals are empowered to stand firm and affect the world as salt and light. I am convinced by the scripture and my experience of seeing many Christians transformed, that we need to understand how God has made us. As we understand what the Bible says about the heart, we will be better able to impact this world.

The Heart:
Proverbs 4:23 says, "Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life." Notice how important the heart is to God. He says, from it flow “springs of life”, literally the issues of life. The word translated as “springs” comes from a root meaning “to go out.” The idea of a spring is that the spring is where the water goes out of the earth. The heart is the spring from which life flows out of us. Thus, it is of great importance to guard our heart. The Keil and Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament says, “before all that one has to guard…guard it [the heart] as the most precious of possessions committed to thy trust.”
The Scripture refers to the heart as man's mind, will, and emotions. It may refer to any one of these individually or any combination of the three.
In John 16:22, Jesus says to His disciples, “Therefore you too now have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one takes your joy away from you.” Jesus says that the emotion of joy occurs in the heart. In Psalm 19:8 we read, “The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart…” Again it is the heart that experiences joy. Because the Lord is with him, David's heart is glad in Psalm 16:9. The king noticed Nehemiah's sadness of heart in Nehemiah 2:2. In Romans 9:2 Paul describes the grief in his heart concerning the lostness of his countrymen. The Bible places the emotions firmly in the arena of the heart.
The heart is also the place where the will resides. The Bible, somewhat frequently uses the phrase “hardened heart.” 1 Samuel 6:6 says, “Why then do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When He had severely dealt with them, did they not allow the people to go, and they departed?” Pharaoh hardened his heart when he refused to allow Israel to leave Egypt. Pharaoh saw the signs demonstrating God’s power and yet he chose to resist God. This purposeful choice is called a hardened heart. Look at Psalm 119:112, “I have inclined my heart to perform Thy statutes forever, even to the end.” David inclines his heart to obedience. He makes the choice to obey God. That choice is an act of his heart. The heart involves both the emotions and the will.
The heart also refers to the mind. Luke 9:47 says, “But Jesus, knowing what they were thinking in their heart…” God brought the flood upon the world because He saw that in man, “every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” Genesis 6:5. In Psalm 119:10, David hides God's word in his heart so that he will not sin against God.
From these passages we can see that the Bible places the mind, the will, and the emotions in the realm of the heart. The greatest commandment, which is found in Deuteronomy 6:5, says, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." Mind, will, and emotions united in exclusive love for our God is the greatest objective of our existence. This is the whole-hearted love that we will learn to express during this study.

The Mind
Let’s begin with the mind. Ayn Rand was fond of saying that the mind is man's only tool for survival. Man lacks any instinct that would provide for his life. A lion has such a strong predation instinct that it will sometimes kill more than it can eat. Its instinct to hunt and kill is stronger than hunger. This predation instinct helps the lion to survive and thrive in this world. Man has no such instinct. Man is too small and slow to hunt. He can not run down a rabbit, let alone a deer. Even if he could catch the deer, he lacks the physical power to overwhelm and kill it. He can outsmart his prey. He invents ways of killing the deer from a great distance. By his mind he discovers how to find water and safe foods to consume. He learns how to plant and harvest crops by using his mind. God has given man a mind to enable him to survive in this world. Therefore, as we begin our close study of the heart, we begin by discussing the mind.
We have already discussed the fact that each of us is driven by our need for unconditional love and purpose. Abraham Maslow explained that man operates on a hierarchy of needs. Before we can begin to love or care for others, we must first meet our own personal needs. Every time we fly on an airplane we are reminded of the rightness of this apparently selfish tendency. On each flight the flight attendant reminds us that if the cabin pressure drops we must put on the air mask. We must first secure our own mask before helping others. The reason is that if we fail to secure our own, we become useless to others. Maslow saw the basic needs of man to be food, shelter, and clothing. We are trying to look a little deeper than Maslow looked when we see our ultimate needs as love and purpose. Even though we see different ultimate needs, the fact that these needs must be met in ourselves, before we can help others, is still true. Our mind continually analyzes our current situation and strategizes to assure that our needs are met.
We are designed by God to be needy, dependent creatures. Man's first sin was an effort to live independent of God. The devil introduced to Eve the idea that something she needed could be found outside of God and His commands. He even intimated that God was a boundary preventing her from finding fulfillment. When Adam and Eve believed the Devil and sought fulfillment outside of God, they brought sin to the whole human race. One of the effects of this sin is that now we all have a bent toward seeking love and purpose outside of God. Although we know God, we suppress that truth and seek to meet our needs through creation rather than the creator, see Romans 1:18-23.
The mind is where we think. We receive information, analyze that information, process that information in relation to other ideas we possess, and then we strategize about what to do with it. We may reject it as false, store it as potentially helpful, ignore it as irrelevant, or find ways to implement it for our benefit. All of this happens in our mind. Every day we are flooded with information. Some of it is so familiar that we process it instantaneously. We hear a quiet beep and immediately reach out to touch our alarm clock. We step into the kitchen and see our spouse or child and we respond instantly with “Good morning!” Sometimes we face new information. We step into the kitchen and there is a stranger standing at the counter wearing a black mask. This information is shocking and at first we do not know what to do. Quickly, our mind races to process this information. Instead of greeting the newcomer with “Good morning!” we may run away, or attack-whichever option we decide is more likely to provide for our need of safety. Our mind quickly devises a strategy and our body must then implement that strategy.
Every day we receive information that is false. The world around us is committed to personal safety and the accumulation of wealth. These become the counterfeit of being loved and valued. Unless we are ever vigilant we begin to adopt these values. When we do, we find it more difficult to account for God in our world. Surely the wicked succeed and many righteous are in grave need. We find ourselves in the same dilemma as Asaph in Psalm 73:25. Asaph was perplexed when he saw the prosperity of the wicked. The solution came when he entered the house of God and considered the end of the wicked. They would ultimately be destroyed. You see, Asaph was slowly seduced by his society to believe that personal safety and wealth were signs of success. When he took the time to contemplate His God, truth began to overcome the lies. He saw that, “the nearness of God is my good,” verse 28.
Just as Asaph had to fill his mind with truth in order to resolve the apparent injustice around him, we must actively fill our minds with truth. Romans 12:2 tells us, “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…” Transformation occurs through our thoughts. Jesus says in John 8:32, “and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” Truth sets us free; truth that we purposefully put into our minds which frees us from failure and destruction.

The Will:
This freedom is not automatic. To experience it we must exercise our will. The will is the second element of our heart that we need to consider. After we have received information, analyzed it, and processed it in our minds, we strategize about what we should do. Then the will takes over. We choose the strategy that we think will be most successful and we act in faith on that strategy. We never act without our mind. I like to use the illustration that you cannot accidentally stand up. You may stand up when you should have laid down or stayed seated, but standing up requires a decision. In the same way, you cannot accidentally speak a coherent sentence. It may be possible for an accidental word to come out of our mouth. But communication requires the engagement of your mind and the determination of your will. You may speak falsely but you cannot speak accidentally.
Let’s look a little closer at the example of standing up to see the connection between the mind and the will. We may ask someone, “Why did you stand up in the middle of the movie?” “Because I thought it was over.” The mind processed the information based on the movie. It drew the conclusion that the movie was over. The mind established a strategy to leave the theater which required standing up. The will acted. This action was an act of faith that the mind had processed the information accurately and the strategy to leave the theatre was a sound strategy. So the embarrassed movie buff stood up.
The will believed certain propositions which were in error, but it is not the will’s place to analyze, but to believe. It is vital to remember that faith resides in the will-not in the mind. James tells us in 2:26, “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.” What he is pointing out is that what we really believe, we live out in our life.
If I were to sit in your living room and tell you, “I believe that I am a chicken.” You would not believe me. You would rightly conclude, “Then why are your seated in my living room carrying on a conversation with me? If you really believe that you are a chicken, you should act like a chicken. You should cluck and search for food with your beak, all the while avoiding people.” You see, you would compare my words with my actions. You would base your conclusion on my actions. You know that we live what we believe.
How do you know that? Each of us believes that water comes from the faucet. We demonstrate that faith every time we place a cup under the faucet and turn the handle. We each believe in gravity. We demonstrate our faith by placing our spoon underneath our Cheerios. Faith resides in our will. What we believe directs our life. What we believe is guided by our mind. We do not arbitrarily choose to act. We act in faith on what our mind has concluded is truth. Our mind may be wrong but our action proves our belief.

The Emotions:
The third area of our heart is the emotions. Probably the greatest confusion about our heart revolves around the emotions. For many, emotions are like sensors that discover hidden dangers in the situations around them. Others refer to being led by their emotions. Both of these concepts are inconsistent with the Biblical teaching about emotions. Emotions are not an active element of our heart that can sense problems, discover danger, or drive our thinking. Emotions are always a passive response to our thinking and the success of our volitional strategies.
Imagine placing a rattlesnake next to an infant. Will the newborn experience the emotion of fear? Of course not! Why not? Because the child does not know that the snake is dangerous. I have asked hundreds of people this question. All of them recognize immediately that the mind produces the emotion of fear regarding the rattlesnake. The emotion is a response to the thinking.
Let’s allow the infant to grow up. The infant is now a herpetologist who specializes in rattlesnakes. Will he be afraid? He will be cautious, but his years of experience with snakes will help him to anticipate the snake’s behavior and avoid a painful strike. He will carefully move away, fully aware that if he moves slowly, the snake will not sense danger and will therefore not strike.
On the other hand, if you put the snake next to me, I will be filled with terror. I am convinced that all snakes are malicious creatures that exist to sneak up on people and kill them with either their venomous bite or their creepy touch. My wrong thinking leads me to fear. My snake-loving friends assist me to overcome my fear of snakes by instructing me about snakes. They explain which snakes are venomous and the fact that even venomous snakes do not want to waste their venom on me since I am too big to eat. To the extent that I learn what they are teaching me (the mind) and believe it to be true, putting it into practice (the will), I am freed from the emotion of fear.

Summary:
The greatest commandment is found in Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your might.” The heart includes our mind, our will, and our emotions. With our mind we process information and develop strategies to meet our deepest needs to be loved and valued. With our will we implement the strategies. And our emotions respond to our success in meeting our needs. When we remember that God is all that we need, and we choose to rest in Him by demonstrating love to those around us, we find real peace and joy. And that is a good thing!

About Me

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I have been a PCA pastor since 1993, having been a pastor in Arizona, Florida, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and as the Team Leader for MTW’s work in Scotland. I am currently the Senior Pastor of Providence Presbyterian Church in York, PA. As a pastor, my desire is to help everyone I meet live out Psalm 73:25, “Whom have I in Heaven but You, and besides You I desire nothing on earth.” I love my Wife Robin, my two sons, Patrick and Michael and my daughter in law, Britney. I am firmly wrapped around the fingers of my granddaughters.

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