Heart Believing V Brain Believing

29 Aug Heart Believing V Brain Believing

There is something about the heart.  In our cranial rationalistic western minds, we often think of believing as an intellectual thing, and certainly when it comes to knowing facts that is the case.  Is there a God?  We can say we believe so with intellectual reasoning.  But Paul writes about saving faith as a heart thing.

‘If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.’  Romans 10:9-10

 That’s interesting.  How do you believe something with your heart?

To answer that, why don’t we consider the opposite.  A great example is found in Psalm for atheists, Psalm 14.

‘The fool says in his heart, there is no God.’  Psalm 14:1

It is the heart of the unbeliever that doesn’t believe in God.  In fact the heart talks saying “there is no God.”  Or, another way of explaining it would be to say, that the unbeliever ‘doesn’t want there to be a God.’  The unbeliever desires (a heart thing) to be unaccountable and live without what they conceive to be constraint.

So the heart has some overlap with the concept of desire, of what one wants.

But one who desires God, who wants to know God, and who puts their trust in God is saved.  Desire, love and trust (aka faith) are all the key Christian qualities.  That type of believing is most definitely a Christian thing.

So being saved involves a change of heart, and then telling someone else about it.  At least that is where you begin.