You can find the video here: https://www.facebook.com/1415702701879327/videos/2810388172395057
Proverbs 2:1-22
We’ve been talking about loving God with all of my heart. But how do we define heart? Is our heart the place we feel emotion or our emotions come from? How did they define heart in biblical days – what did the Shema infer when it says we need to love God with all of our heart?
We can see through the New Testament, Jesus made some big statements hat had to do with people’s hearts. He often chastised the Pharisees for what was in their hearts or what came out of their hearts.
So in biblical times, when speaking of the heart of a person, it wasn’t a physical reference like the heart muscle. It was this idea of the center of a person’s being – where intellect, emotion, and will combined together to make decisions. The heart of a person was the moral center of a person.
The writer of Proverbs tells us in chapter 2, that Wisdom is given to us by God and through seeking God wisdom will enter your heart. So that you will know what is right, just, fair, and every good path. Let’s read this Scripture together.
Proverbs 2:1-22 (NIV) My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding—indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.
For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds success in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.
Then you will understand what is right and just and fair—every good path. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you.
Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse, who have left the straight paths to walk in dark ways, who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.
Wisdom will save you also from the adulterous woman, from the wayward woman with her seductive words, who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God. Surely her house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead. None who go to her return or attain the paths of life.
Thus you will walk in the ways of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous. For the upright will live in the land, and the blameless will remain in it; but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the unfaithful will be torn from it.
Can you see from just this one example how loving God with all my heart is not just an emotion? It’s not like in the Disney animation movie Bambi where at the end of the movie all the animals, and even the little skunk, get twitterpated. When we talk about loving God with all our heart, we are not twitterpated with God. Loving God will all our heart, is all in action. Yes there are times where it is accompanied by emotion, but loving God with all my heart encompasses so much more.
In the book of Matthew, Jesus tells us that where are treasures are that is where our heart is. And He goes on to explain that we should set our hearts on the things above – in heaven – where they will be for all of eternity, not on things here on earth that will decay.
How do we view the term heart? Maybe we think of our feelings. There are countless songs which have placed emotions, especially love, at the center of our heart. Billy Ray Cyrus didn’t want someone to break his achy breaky heart a few years back. This view of the heart is centered around the emotions we have toward others – and not about loving God with all of our heart.
The Bible teaches us that we must love God not with just our emotions. That is only a part of our heart. God’s Word teaches us that loving with all of our heart includes all our emotions, desires, passions, thoughts, affections, and will.