When we think of how we make decisions and choices in our lives, we think of the mind as creating thought and the heart as something that must be followed. When in all actuality it is through the heart that all decisions, all thought, all follow-through is done.
Ephesians 1:16-19 "I ask that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened (shine brightly), so that you may know the hope of His calling, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and the surpassing greatness of His power to us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of His mighty strength."
The spirit-heart starts out black, because we view sin as black/dark. Only the Light of God's Love, Jesus Christ, can turn the heart from black/dark to gold/light.
When we first come to knowledge of the saving grace of God through the cross on which His only begotten Son Jesus Christ died, the blood which Jesus shed is applied to the darkness of our hearts. We call this being saved.
We also call this not enough to live holy. God calls us to holiness in our every day lives because He is holy and He cannot be in the same room as sin, because sin is rebelliousness to God and God's Holy Word. Therefore, we also need God's Holy Spirit to continually work on the darkness of our hearts, like water forming and shaping the rocks in a body of water: constantly flowing, never-ending shifting over and around and through us: making us holy and filling us ever more with God's Light and Love.
But that takes time and effort. Time to allow the Holy Spirit to deconstruct the darkness and construct us into honorable friends of God, holy and acceptable to Him.
First, the heart is washed clean by the Blood of God's Lamb, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the world.
Anyone who believes that Jesus Christ is LORD is saved. Romans 10:13 "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the LORD shall be saved." That is when the blood is applied to the heart because Romans 10:8-10 "But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: that if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised Him out from the dead, you will be saved. For with your heart you believe and are justified, and with your mouth you confess and are saved."
Why do we want to speak out our salvation? Why not? There is nothing to be ashamed of: but there is everything to rejoice aloud!
So we see here in these three verses that the heart makes the decision to believe and the mouth speaks what is in the heart.
But the heart had to be able to hear the Word before the Spirit could apply the Word in the heart. How did the heart hear the Word?
So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ. Romans 10:17
The Word that was preached, the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ, who died on the cross in our stead, was buried and rose from the dead and is now seated at the right hand of the Father is the Word that the heart did hear and receive upon believing this to be truth.
Our spiritually anatomically correct heart does not stop there, though. We now know that our hearts can think, and hear so let us continue our journey through The Word.
Because the heart is the decision maker, it is also the place of understanding, where wisdom is applied; therefore the heart can also see:
Ephesians 1:16-19 "I ask that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened (shine brightly), so that you may know the hope of His calling, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and the surpassing greatness of His power to us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of His mighty strength."
Job 42:5 "My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You." Proverbs 18:15 "The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks it out." Whether discernment or hearing, it is the heart doing the work.
Through Psalm 34:8 we see that our hearts have mouths, as it is impossible to taste or chew without a mouth.
"Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!" And again in Hebrews 6:4-5 "It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened (shone brightly), who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit---who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age--..."
The heart also drinks in through the mouth the Living Water that comes from Christ Jesus. In Matthew 5:5 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled." And again in John 7:38 "Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said: ‘Streams of living water will flow from within him.’” These 'streams of living water'? The Holy Spirit. John 7:39 "He was speaking about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive. For the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified."
We could say that our spirit-heart resembles this:
It is a busy heart, indeed. And when the heart has accomplished all which God has set forth for it to do, the heart will be holy and pure and acceptable to God the Father, ready to be in His eternal holy presence.
