HEART
Heart in Scripture is used
in various ways. Sometimes it means our reason or understanding, sometimes our
affections and emotion, and sometimes our will. Generally it denotes the whole
soul of man and all its faculties, not individually, but as they all work
together in doing good or evil. The mind as it reasons, discerns, and judges;
the emotions as they like or dislike; the conscience as it determines and
warns; and the will as it chooses or refuses – are all together called the
heart.
Jerry Bridges
Copied
from The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges, © 1996, p. 61. Used by
permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com. All rights
reserved.
The world's battlefields have been in the
heart chiefly; more heroism has been displayed in the household and the closet,
than on the most memorable battlefields in history.
Henry
Ward Beecher
The heart in
the Scripture is variously used; sometimes for the mind and understanding,
sometimes for the will, sometimes for the affections, sometimes for the
conscience, sometimes for the whole soul. Generally, it denotes the whole soul
of man and all the faculties of it, not absolutely, but as they are all one
principle of moral operations, as they concur in our doing good or evil…the
seat and subject of the law of sin is the heart of man.
John Owen
Temptation
and Sin, Sovereign Grace Book Club, 1958, p. 170.
The heart
must be the principal point to which we attend in all the relations between God
and our souls. What is the first thing we need, in order to be Christians? A new heart. What is the sacrifice God asks us to bring to
him? A broken and a contrite heart. What is the true
circumcision? The circumcision of the heart. What is
genuine obedience? To obey from the heart. What is
saving faith? To believe with the heart. Where ought
Christ to dwell? To dwell in our hearts by faith. What
is the chief request that Wisdom makes to every one? “My son, give me your
heart.”
J.C.
Ryle
Matthew Commentary, Chapter 15.
The human heart is like a ship on a stormy
sea driven about by winds blowing from all four corners of heaven.
The heart has its reasons of which reason
knows nothing.
Blaise Pascal
See that your chief study be about your heart,
that there God’s image may be planted, and His interest advanced, and the
interest of the world and flesh subdued, and the love of every sin cast out,
and the love of holiness succeed.
Richard Baxter
The first and the great work of a Christian is about his heart. Do not be content with seeming to do good in “outward acts” while your heart is bad, and you are
a stranger to the greater internal heart duties.
Jonathan Edwards
You must keep all earthy treasures out of
your heart, and let Christ be your treasure, and let Him have your heart.
C.H. Spurgeon
We
must not trust our heart at any time; even when it speaks most fair, we must
call it liar; and when it pretends to the most good, still we must remember its
nature, for it is evil, and that continually.
C.H. Spurgeon
Indwelling Sin, Sermon
from Job 40:3-4.
The Great God values not the service of men if the heart
be not in it: The Lord sees and judges the heart; He has no regard for outward
forms of worship, if there be no inward adoration, if no devout affection be
employed therein. It is therefore a matter of infinite importance, to have the
whole heart engaged steadfastly for God.
Isaac Watts
Discourses on the
Love of God, 1798, p. 12.
The human
heart has so many crannies where vanity hides, so many holes where falsehood
lurks, is so decked out with deceiving hypocrisy, that it often dupes itself.
John Calvin
A Calvin Treasury.
Christianity Today, v. 37, n. 4.
What’s in the
well of the heart comes up in the bucket of the mouth (Luke 6:45).
Author Unknown