Tuesday, October 14, 2025

Matter of the Heart

                                                      Matter of the heart is heart itself


                 Emotions, desires, intentions, and inner thoughts  come from the core of a person’s being. The heart is often seen as the center of a person’s spiritual and emotional life. Brain can think, and so also our hearts. God’s word sees the heart as the seat of emotions, thoughts, and will. This reflects one's actions and relationship with God.

I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well; Psa. 139: 14.

         Examining and aligning our intentions, motives, and our thought life with God’s word is vital and the most important thing for life itself. 

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it; Prov. 4: 23. 

                This emphasizes the importance of protecting and nurturing one’s heart because it influences a person’s actions and decisions. In essence, this is the “matter of the heart”. 

And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live; Deut. 30: 6. 

Emlet, Michael, writes, Ultimately our bodies do not have “the final say” when it comes to whether or not we live in faith or idolatry. At most, the body can only influence our hearts to make that righteous or sinful choice. The Scriptures affirm the active, responsive-to-God heart, while not ignoring the powerful influences of the body on the heart.[i] 

Strong's Greek: 2588. καρδία (kardia) -- Heart - Bible Hub

2588 kardía – heart; "the affective center of our being" and the capacity of moral preference (volitional desire, choice; see P. Hughs, 2 Cor, 354); " desire -producer that makes us tick"[ii]

The Hebrew heart: the seat of intelligence and … lev/leb or le’vahv. 

Nov 28, 2014 · The noun כלב (keleb) is the common Hebrew word for dog, and it's formally unclear where it comes from, although it looks like a combination of …[iii]

Exploring these foundational principles can lead us to a deeper understanding of our relationship with God and with people around us. Guarding the Heart: Prov.4:23; Love and Compassion: Col. 3: 12;  Forgiveness: Ephe. 4:32; Integrity and Honesty: Prov. 11: 3;  Seeking God’s Guidance:  Prov. 3: 5-6. All of these are matters of our heart. Our hearts are very deceptive, so we have to constantly pay attention to our heart.

The heart has long been thought to be controlled solely by the autonomic nervous system, which transmits signals from the brain. The heart’s neural network, which is embedded in the superficial layers of the heart wall, has been considered a simple structure that relays the signals from the brain. However, recent research suggests that it has a more advanced function than that. The heart’s nervous system includes specialized neurons with pacemaker functions. This “mini-brain” regulates heartbeat independently of the central nervous system. Understanding it could lead to better treatments for heart diseases like arrhythmias.[iv]

         God is very near to the broken hearted; and so we can trust His promises, and He has listening ears for those who are contrite in spirit, with emotional distress and shattered like billions of glass pieces! Both metaphorically and literally, we can trust His promises for: Spiritual condition of the heart; Prov. 4:23; Condition of our hearts; Jer. 17:9; Renewal and healing; Eze. 36: 26; Psa. 51: 10; Emotional and physical heart issues; Psa. 73: 26; 34: 18.



    [i] Emlet, Michael, R. 2002. Understanding the influences on the human heart. Journal of Biblical Counseling, 20:47-52.

That context may be health, or it may be disease (or somewhere on that spectrum). Hormones may be balanced or unbalanced. A person may be able or disabled. Either situation demands a response of the person as he or she stands before God, and the initiation of this response resides in the heart. This means that while we may speak of the heart in moral-covenantal terms— righteous or unrighteous—the body cannot be spoken of in the same terms. As mediator, the body in and of itself is not the source of sin but is spoken of in terms such as weakness/strength, limitation, and dependence.

[ii]https://www.bing.com/search?FORM=I657DF&PC=I657&q=heart+in+Greek+wordBible Hub https://biblehub.com › greek

[iv] https://neurosciencenews.com/heart-brain-nervous-system-28177/

Your Heart’s Secret: It Has Its Own Nervous System


 

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