What is Your Heart According to the Bible and How Can You Exercise It?

What is your heart according to the Bible? Also, how can you exercise your heart so that it functions normally toward God?

Since knowing our heart is basic to our experience of Christ and of God’s salvation, we need to give this point our first consideration. Then it’s also vital to learn how to exercise our heart, that is, to deal with our heart, so that it functions properly to love the Lord.

So in this post we’ll focus on these two important matters—1) knowing what our heart is and 2) knowing how we can exercise our heart so that it fulfills it’s God-created function.

What is your heart according to the Bible?

The Bible reveals that your heart is your loving organ. It’s that part of your inner being that enables you to love God and what He loves. Since love is the basis for all our experience of the Lord, we need to start with our heart.

You can see from the Bible, that God created you with only three main parts—spirit, soul and body (1 Thes. 5:23).

So actually, your heart is not a separate organ. It’s simply a composition of the three parts of your soul—mind, will and emotion—plus your conscience—the leading part of your spirit.

To confirm this–let’s  look at what the Bible says about the parts of the  heart:

Mind–“thinking in your heart”

The Lord told the religious scribes who were reasoning against Him,

“Why are you thinking evil in your hearts” (Matt. 9:4).

Thinking is the function of your mind. But here it speaks of “thinking… in your hearts.” From this verse you can see that your mind is a part of your heart.

Will–“intentions of the heart”

Hebrews 4:12, actually confirms that both your mind and will are parts of your heart. This verse says,

“For the word of God is living and operative…and able to discern the thoughts and the intentions of the heart.”

First, it confirms that the thoughts are of the heart. We just covered this. Then it goes on to mention “the intentions of the heart.” Since intention is a function of your will, you can see from this verse that your will is also a part of your heart.

Emotion–“your heart will rejoice”

Before the Lord Jesus went to the cross, He told His disciples,

“Therefore you also now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you” (John 16:22).

Since rejoicing is an expression of emotion, for your heart to rejoice means that your emotion is also a part of your heart.

Conscience–“hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience”

 Finally, you can see from Hebrews 10:22 that your conscience is also a part of your heart. That verse says,

“Let us come forward to the Holy of Holies, with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience…”

“Having your heart sprinkled from an evil conscience” implies that your conscience is also a part your heart. Practically, to come forward to God, you need to have a heart free from condemnation. And to do this you need to have your conscience sprinkled with the Lord’s cleansing blood.

How can you exercise your heart so that it functions normally?

Now that you’ve seen the composition, the parts of your heart, let’s go on to consider how you can exercise your heart so that it functions normally—so that it loves the Lord fervently.

The following four steps are the best heart exercise, the spiritual “cardio work out” that you need to make your heart healthy for it to function normally in loving the Lord.

First, exercise your heart to turn to the Lord. 

Second Corinthians 3:16 says,

“But whenever their heart turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.”

 This is the best way to begin your day. You can turn your heart to the Lord by calling on His name, singing a spiritual song, or uttering a short prayer like this,

 “Lord Jesus, I turn my heart to You right now.”

 Here is a spiritual song on the verse I mentioned to help you turn your heart to the Lord.

Second, exercise your heart to believe God’s word. 

 Romans 10:9 says,

 “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

We need to exercise faith to believe what God has spoken in His Word. One of the best ways I know to exercise faith is to pray with God’s Word, to pray-read the Bible.

After you turn your heart to the Lord, simply open your Bible, and with your eyes on the verses of Scripture, pray them back to the Lord.  Try saying “Amen” to the Word of God. This is great way to exercise faith in your heart.

Third, exercise to deal with your conscience so there is no condemnation in your heart.

From Hebrews 10:22, we saw that we need to have “our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience…”

The more you exercise faith in God and God’s Word, the more you’ll sense you’re wrong in many things.

When you sense condemnation in your heart, simply confess any offense on your conscience to the Lord and receive the cleansing of His blood. This will cause your heart to be at peace.

Finally,  your heart will be renewed.

 Ezekiel  36:26  says,

 “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.”

What is this “new heart” that the Lord gives us? Actually, it is simply our old heart that has been renewed by the exercise of the three foregoing steps: turning our heart to the Lord, exercising faith in the Lord and in His Word, and having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience by the precious blood of Jesus.

 Concluding thoughts…

Practicing the above steps will cause your heart to function normally–to love the Lord. In this way the first commandment spoken of by the Lord Jesus in Mark 12:30 will spontaneously be fulfilled in you,

  “And you shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart…”

“Lord Jesus, thank You for showing me that I have a heart especially made to love You. Lord help me to daily turn my heart to You and to believe in You and in Your living Word. Teach me to daily confess my sins, that my heart may be sprinkled from an evil conscience and be continually renewed to love You as You have commanded me.”

If you have been helped by the points in this post, please share your appreciation with a short comment.

 References and Further Reading:

•  This post is a brief summary of some of the crucial points on the heart from The Economy of God by Witness Lee, chapters six and seven.
• You can read these chapters online at ministrybooks.org, order your own free copy from Bibles for America, RhemaBooks.org or download a free PDF.
• Here is a  hymn that strengthens the point of this post:
  • God created us His vessels and view lyrics.