We will continue to understand the inner workings of our hearts better by studying its equivalent (by psychiatric terms) the subconscious mind.
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The function of your subconscious mind is to store and retrieve data. Its job is to ensure that you respond exactly the way you are programmed. Your subconscious mind makes everything you say and do fit a pattern consistent with your self-concept, your ‘master program’.
Let me rephrase the last sentence. Your heart makes everything you say and do fit a pattern consistent with your self-concept, your ‘master program’.
Remember, your heart is the wellspring of your life. Your character, your will, your desires, your thoughts (good and evil), your ambitions, your emotional needs, your rejection, rebellion and pride, your good memories, bad memories, everything you ever saw or heard and anything else you can think of that pertains to your life or character is stored up in your heart as a spiritual program.
Then whatever happens to you in life will trigger all of these things to come up with an answer to the problem or situation you are in. It is like pushing the search button for Google on your computer.
If you have a lot of unresolved issues in your heart (unforgiveness, rejection, rebellion, pride, etc.) then all those programs will come up with an ungodly response.
If the pride program is large, then it will justify the wrong response because it is a self deceiving program that cannot admit that it is wrong.
In Jeremiah 17:1 God says, “Judah’s sin is engraved with an iron tool, inscribed with a flint point, on the tablets of their hearts and on the horns of their altars.”
Their sin was a strong program written on the tablets of their hearts with a hard flint point. This had a strong affect on their ‘will power’ program. The heart is our altar before God and the horns speak of power.
The Lord then goes on to say that the person who trusts in man or depends on the strength of flesh is cursed when his heart is turned away from the Lord.
Then come the scriptures we so often quote in Jeremiah 17:9-10 The heart is deceitfully wicked above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? “I, the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.”
When we are offended, the program of rejection kicks in and we feel put down and insulted. The heart is programmed to survive, therefore, when the program of rejection causes our feelings (emotions) to be hurt, then the program of pride kicks in which releases anger, bitterness, hatred and unforgiveness. This also causes our self-will, which is a part of the pride program, to be released. These all cause strong emotional feelings in our heart, which then causes the program of rebellion to kick in. All these programs combined with the strong emotions that are released, cause our ‘will power’ to become weak for doing good, but strong to do something evil. This will result in speaking or doing something evil. “From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”
This response over time then becomes a programmed response in our hearts to offenses in our lives. The pride in our hearts justifies this response (an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth) and it then becomes part of our character.
This reminds me of Paul’s dilemma in Romans 7:21-25 When I want to do good, evil is right there with me…… Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Our born again spirits are programmed perfectly with the nature of God.
We rewrite the programs of our hearts by living out of our spirits.
The program of pride has to be changed in our heart by living the program of poor in spirit, sacrificial love and servanthood.
As I have said many times in my teaching on the heart of man, “The thing that scares me the most is my own heart.”
