I will give them a heart to know Me.

The Bible refers to the heart in many ways and at many levels.  The least frequent reference is to the actual physical heart.  Most references can be associated to the emotional, moral, and reasoning counsels of the internal physically hidden center of a person.  This place inside of every person is the place where the real you is located and only you and God are witnesses to it.  Jesus said in Luke 16:15 that “God knows your hearts.” (Also reference 1 Sam 16:7, Prov 25:3, 1 Cor 4:5.)  However, Jesus said in Matthew 12:33-34 that the heart’s secrets are betrayed by the mouth and Paul clarified that the mouth confesses what the heart trusts (Rom 10:9).

Jesus said in Mark 7:21, “Far from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts”.  Jeremiah said in 17:9 that “the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?” 

Today’s American culture has as one of its bedrocks this concept that rational and irrational thoughts do not come from the same mind.  This means that a person who consistently makes logical and sound decisions would not make an illogical or unsound decision without some external influence.  The IQ test is based solely on this premise assuming that intelligence and rationality go together.  Yet we all know intelligent people that do extremely irrational things.  This would lead me to believe that rational decisions come from somewhere other than only intelligence. 

Psalm 20:4 says, “May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.”  This would indicate that the desires of your heart, that inner man where the real you is located, is what is driving your decisions where rational (decisions made to benefit yourself and others) or apparently irrational (decisions made that are harmful to yourself and others) are made.  This is why a highly intelligent person, by our standards, can make the worst insensible decisions in their daily life.  Their inner man is being led by something other their ability to make intelligent rational decisions from data.

Julie indicates that the movie Forrest Gump is a excellent example.  All the people around Forrest were normal and of apparent normal intelligence, yet they all made irrational decisions and led inconsistent lives.  Forrest, the dumb one, made rational decisions and led a consistent successful life.  The point of decision making was from each person's inner self and the condition of that inner self was the most important contributing factor of the person's decisions, not their intelligence.

This is important to realize so we can know that it is within our inner core of who we are that we need to be changed.  This is where the sin nature exists.  We might not want it to be there, but it is there.  This is why we need a new “heart”.  We need a new internal hidden center, a new inner self.  David prayed that God would, “Create in me a pure heart, O God”.  The only way to get a new “heart” is to believe in Jesus as the Son of the one true living God and that He came and paid the penalty we would pay for that rotten inner “heart” that is evil and deceitful.  When we believe in Him, we will get a new “heart”, which is really God Himself in the presence of His Spirit.  This opportunity to believe in Jesus is available 24/7, 24 hours a day, 7 days each week. 

Out of that new “heart”, will come all that is God inasmuch as we are able to express it and allow it to dominate our own wicked thoughts and desires.  God is there, but so are we as is our ability to choose ourselves.  Only through constant recognition of our own wickedness and our intense desire of love for God to reject it, can God make daily work in our life.  Every day we choose to not just believe He exists, but to love Him for being our God.  Russ would quote from Joshua 25:15, "...choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve...as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."  Every day we choose whom we will love.  Our Father will then do everything else.

The most blessed thing God could ever put towards me, towards my family, towards my friends, is to say “I will give them a heart to know Me.”