The Centrality of the Heart
What does it mean, practically speaking, to pay attention to the healing and transformation of one’s heart? Here are four simple ideas.
Cultivating good religion in the way of Jesus is focused on the heart—the interior, non-material place from which attitudes, actions and words come:
This people’s heart has become calloused (Matthew 13:15).
These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me (Matthew 15:8).
Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts (Matthew 9:4)?
Out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander (Matthew 15:19).
A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart (Luke 6:45).
Blessed are the pure in heart (Matthew 5:8).
What does it mean, practically speaking, to pay attention to the healing and transformation of one’s heart? Here are four simple ideas.
Recognize.
We begin by recognizing, from the point of view of biblical writers, what the heart is. It is the source of our most profound commitments—what we love, trust, desire, hope in, hope for, and dream to achieve. Together, these all lead to a basic orientation to life, a worldview, a posture that sets a direction or trajectory for our life. For good or bad, we are controlled by our hearts. Jesus put it concisely: For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:21).
Renovation of the heart begins with the recognition that within our hearts a cosmic battle rages. As Jeremiah put it, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17.9) The human story is not actually human. It is Divine. Humanity is God’s idea, his creation, his ongoing endeavor. But humanity is fallen, misaligned in many ways with Divine intention. This missing of the mark shows up in all manner of sin and evil. News headlines decry the social aspects, but honest people know that similar struggles, on smaller stages, are personalized in our hearts.
Respect.
We must come to respect the knowledge Jesus conveys, that outward words and deeds come from one’s heart.
This powerful insight touches on a frequent source of human frustration: Willpower alone does not work. Trusting in willpower, hammering away at that button over and over, getting angry with ourselves, never works. It wrongly assumes that our will is entirely aligned with the other aspects of our life, such as thoughts, emotions and social relations. This is rarely the case.
Our wills are constantly lobbied by our thoughts, our feelings and the messages we pick up from close friends or strangers who irritate us on the freeway or take too long to order at the coffee shop. We experience malformation from families of origin, our schooling, advertising, music, TV shows, talk radio, cable TV, etc. These all create norms with great gravitational pull in their direction and away from a heart well-aligned to God.
External measurements and behavior modification do not work—they leave the heart untouched. Changing one’s thinking with new ideas is not reliably effective. Spiritual growth happens when we respect and cooperate with Jesus’ insights about the centrality of the heart.
Renew.
When we recognize the centrality of the heart in Christian formation and respect Jesus’ insights about it, we are led to the desire to repent, to seek amendment of life, to intend to live differently. This will normally lead to the grace-based, wise, gentle practice of spiritual disciplines. The practices of silence, solitude, study, worship, prayer, and hidden service, etc., are simply the means by which we do what is currently in our power with the intention of growing to a point that we can do what we envision, desire and intend. Spiritual disciplines train us in private for a life in public.1
Re-Engage.
This is the public part of our formation where we join Jesus in being redemptively proximate to the needs of humanity. Some aspects of our heart can only be transformed in the presence of the poor, the least, the last, the left out and the marginalized. By engaging with the troubles of life, we solidify the bent of our heart to love the Lord our God with all our heart…and to love our neighbor as ourselves…and to even love our enemies (Matthew 22:37, 38, 5:44).
We engage in life with Jesus as our teacher and model. Jesus said of himself, I am gentle and humble in heart (Matthew 11:29). This means that transformation into Christlikeness includes a gentle and humble heart as one’s fundamental character in the activities of life. New practices and habits of healing, justice and benevolence flow from the heart. As Jesus said, whoever believes in me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
The Jesus-path will lead you to this insight:
Put everything you have into the care of your heart—
the hidden, causative, motivational you—
for everything you do flows from it.
It is the real source of your outward life.
It determines what your life amounts to (Proverbs 4:23, author’s paraphrase).
See Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines and Renovation of the Heart. See also James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful God, and Henry Nouwen, The Way of the Heart. See also my books, Our Favorite Sins and Deep Peace.