Biologically, the heart is a muscular organ that pumps life-giving blood to all parts of the human body through the body’s circulatory system of various blood vessels. This process provides the oxygen and nutrients that our bodies need to survive. A healthy heart pumps the right amount of blood at a rate that allows the human body to function as God created. As the power supply of the body, if the heart stops functioning (such as during cardiac arrest), our bodies begin systematically shutting down. Without the power supply of the heart, nothing else works. Needless to say, the human heart is one of the most important organs God placed within our bodies.
Similarly, the heart is one of the most important spiritual organs, that God placed within us as well. It is our very core or the essence of ourselves. Our hearts encompass our personalities, choices, feelings, motives, emotions, and intentions. Just as our physical hearts are critical to our health, our spiritual hearts are important to our being.
And as the heart is the focus of countless secular poems and songs like, Achy Breaky Heart and My Heart Will Go On, the heart is often the focus of the Bible – it is mentioned almost 1,000 times.
And so, our heavenly Father has a heart also, not the physical kind but one that can be broken over and over when we sin or reject Him and one that rejoices when we choose to seek Him and follow Him. The Lord always knows our heart’s true condition when we are not in His will and when we please Him. He foreknew that our hearts would gravitate toward sin in our fleshly nature.
Jeremiah 17:9-10a notes, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart.” And in Mark 7:21-23, Jesus said, “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”
The Lord knows that we in our sinful nature need a new heart and He promises it to those who seek Him for it. Psalm 51:10 says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” And Acts 13:22 says, “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will.”
Again and again, the Bible tells us that our hearts must be made pure, and yet God foreknew that we are incapable of achieving that or maintaining it on our own. To that end, He sent His only begotten Son to be our savior. Christ came to earth as a man and paid the debt for our sins and our heart ailments. Through the grace of God and our faith and confession in Jesus Christ, we can be cleansed and have a spiritual heart transplant. We can be freed from the bondage of sin.
Ezekiel 36:26 says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Matthew 5:8 tells us, “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” And Hebrews 10:22 tells us, “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
Our spiritual hearts are fragile so just as it is important to take care of our physical hearts with good nourishment and appropriate physical exercise, it is critical to nourish and care for our spiritual hearts. King Solomon recognized how important it is to take care of our hearts. He cautioned us in Proverbs 4:23 to guard our hearts, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
In this world, many things will come against us so we must protect ourselves as Christians so that we can overcome and fight temptations, doubt, and distractions. We do not want to have spiritual heart failure so we must take care of our hearts and keep our guards up.
Let us be encouraged to pursue healthy habits for both our physical and spiritual hearts. We keep our spiritual hearts healthy by prayer, staying in the Word of God, and being connected with Godly associates so that we can resist the evil one and stay in the will of God.