Have you ever had those thoughts that you want to share, but the thought isn’t fully formed so you don’t share it? Well, this blog is one of those thoughts and I’m just going to share it because I’m curious what others think. So here goes:
I hear a lot of talk about “the heart.”
“How is your heart today?”
“What does your heart say?”
“I want to know your heart.”
I have used phrases like these many times, but I’ve realized than I say them rather flippantly. So I started giving it a little more thought. I would like to begin by posing the idea that we might be focusing on the heart a little too much sometimes, causing us to forget about the mind.
“but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2)
I have not done any sort of extensive research, but I don’t recall reading anything in the Bible that talks specifically about the renewal of the heart. Once a person truly commits their life to Christ, Christ then resides in their heart. The heart of that person is forever changed, or renewed if you will. The heart of a Christian is renewed when Christ is invited in.
The mind however is another story. The mind is where we form our own thoughts and opinions, views and desires. And the scary thing is that these are not always in alignment with the will and desire God has for us. This is the influence from our flesh. The mind can also be negatively influenced by the world around us. Cue movies, politics, music, television, peers, parents, teachers, bosses, celebrities, etc. Anything around us has the potential to drop ideas into our minds that are not within the will of God for our lives. Finally there is Satan, the Father of Lies. Satan is always right there to infect our minds with negativity and lies that pull us away from God.
The things of this world and Satan can only access our minds not our hearts. It is the mind of a person that is susceptible to the lies of Satan.
As an example I want to look at David. Even though God knew that David would committed adultery and murder, God still called David “a man after His heart.” Even though David sinned against God, God saw his heart to be good. Okay, cool that’s awesome. But since we are talking about the heart that brings up another question: In his Psalm of repentance, why then did David then have to cry out to the Lord to create within him a clean heart? (Psalm 51:10)
I would venture to say that the sin David committed affected his heart, but he did not act out of the desires of his heart. As Paul puts it in Romans 7 David found himself doing the things that he did not want to do, By “things,” Paul means the true desires of the heart. Satan tempted David within his mind and David acted upon that temptation and therefore sinned. Since the desire of David’s heart was to follow God, his heart was affected by the sin that he committed with deep feelings of guilt and remorse.
I have been told countless times not to focus on the things that are frustrate me about people, but to focus on the good things in a person. “There is goodness there; you just have to look through the eyes of Jesus,” they’ll say. When I do this I look beyond the behaviors, beyond the physical, beyond the outward appearance and into the heart.
So here’s the thing: If I am to look into the heart to find the good in a person, can a person’s heart be bad? Do I need to question “the heart” behind something? Is a person’s heart ever really in a “bad place” as we often say? Should I always be able to trust the heart of my fellow Christians to always be good? Is it their mind and flesh that’s being corrupted, thus causing them to act out of the character, the character that is truly in their heart? And am I doing the same when I see only the actions and not the heart? Furthermore, does this apply to both Christians and non-Christians?
I don’t know. I want to believe that I can always trust the heart of people to be good and I daily try to do so. But as I said in the beginning I’m just sharing some thoughts. And if you want to weigh in on the thoughts (which I hope you do) now is your chance.
