Op-Ed: Are You a Good Steward of Your Heart?
The Scriptures tell us that the heart is desperately wicked.
Jeremiah 17:9 underscores the reality of the Fall in Genesis 3: “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?”
Jeremiah’s proclamation indicates that our rationalism apart from God’s revelation can be tainted. It follows that we need to train our hearts in God’s righteousness by regularly studying the Word of God.
What could be more important to a public servant who desires to serve his constituents the best he can than an intense, regular intake of the Word of God? All of us must be about reprogramming and forever managing our fallen hearts lest we fail to affirm and negate what God affirms and negates.
This week’s Bible study, “Are You a Good Steward of Your Heart?,” examines what the Bible says about the heart, with a focus on King Solomon’s writings in Proverbs, the little book of wisdom.
By exhaustively studying and attempting to outline all that Solomon says about wisdom, in this case the wisdom related to managing one’s heart, we can see — via the repetition and breadth of Solomon’s dealing with this subject — the essence of God-like thinking and understanding related to human intellect, emotion and will (which are synonyms for the heart). It follows that such a study helps us become more Christ-like.
Since the physical heart occupies the central place in human physiology, the Hebrew and English words “by easy transition … came to stand for man’s entire mental and moral activity, both the rational and emotional elements. In other words, the heart is used figuratively [in Scripture] for the hidden springs of the personal life,” according to the English Dictionary of New Testament Words.
The Hebrew word for heart is leb, which carries an expansive, summary meaning to include not only the intellect but also the emotion and will of a person’s inner being. The Greek word used in the New Testament is nous, which translates into the English words “mind,” “understanding” and “reason.”
This Bible study reveals that God is sovereign over and knows and tests the hearts of men.
Herein, then, is the case for and the necessity of every believer discipling his otherwise wayward heart with scriptural truth, the personal responsibility to do so, and the fruits of a disciplined or undisciplined heart, among many other points.
This study is a good theological investigation and personal motivation that should profoundly shape our lives relative to heart stewardship.
Do you reap the fruit of a disciplined or an undisciplined mind? How do you know for sure what is right and wrong with your thinking apart from the precepts of Scripture? Have you yet bowed the knee to the authority of the written and living Word of God in your life?
Click here to read the entire study.
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