The heart is vitally important when it comes to transformation. Its importance is seen throughout the Scriptures, because the ways of God are not truly received until our heart experiences them. The heart is the treasured seat of all that we hold dear; it is the core of what takes place within our spirit and soul.
Experiencing something in the heart creates a difference from what we know in theory to what we know absolutely. The heart is the door that makes way for change in the human spirit and soul. It is the place where knowledge is not just a theory, but an experienced reality ingrained within us. When something touches the heart, it becomes a part of us, not just something we can quote. When our heart is open and healthy, we can connect to God and others effectively and powerfully.
When Jesus spoke of the heart, he summed up the nucleus of our inner being with one word. The operation of what happens in our spirit and soul can be summed up with the word heart. The heart addresses the location where God seeks to begin and continue His work. Since the dawn of creation, God has always sought to connect in relationship to mankind’s heart.
When God gets a hold of our heart, we don’t just know about Him, we encounter Him! In addition to this, when we receive His Word in our heart, we are able to not only receive His truth, but the keys for relationship open up and we can experience truth. This moves us past religious ritual into refreshing relationship.
The life of the heart is everything. Out of it flow all the issues of life. (Proverbs 4:23) What we experience in life and how we process the highs and lows affects our heart deeply. Our experiences and how we process them also dramatically impact our spirituality.
For example, the Scriptures say that when sorrow is within the heart, our spirit is broken. (Proverbs 15:13) When the heart is healthy, tremendous physical health and wholeness will result. When the heart is filled with sorrow that is not healed or resolved, our spirit loses its strength. Even those areas of hurt which get suppressed will dangerously fester. The negative effects of loss of strength in the spirit then trickle down to the rest of our being.
At the same time, when our heart experiences the love of Father God, then strength and healing can be unleashed into our spirit. God is love, so the very essence of His nature can be released into our hearts when we open up to experiencing His healing. Because our hearts were created for love, our spiritual love buckets become satisfied with what God designed them to be filled with–Him.