4) Let's just give you a few more reasons why the heart's so important. The fourth thing is, the heart is the center of the boundaries and borders of your life.
Proverbs 4:23 - "guard your heart diligently, for out of your heart flow the issues of your life".
The word issues is the word 'borders', or 'boundaries of the territory'. In other words, the limitations of your life are determined by what you believe in your heart. If you have poverty in your heart... no matter what you have, you'll always see poverty. Here's another reason why the heart is important: because you interpret life from your heart. You see it with your eyes, but that's just signals. You interpret it with your heart.
In other words, when people say and do things, they just said and did something; but it's you who decides what that means - because you judge it in your heart. So in Matthew 7, he said: don't judge. Learn not to judge. Be an observer, not a judge. You've got no idea really what's going on. He said: if you become a judge, then you're just going to start to reap things in your life, because it's in your heart. The judgements you have in your heart will be a cycle that you'll keep reaping in your life. That's why patterns keep forming - because there's judgements in the heart. He said: first get the beam out of your own eye, then you'll see clearly. In other words, what's in our heart stops us seeing clearly. We just don't see people; we see them through what's in our heart.
So if someone just ignores you, what does that mean? It doesn't mean anything. Maybe they didn't see you. I don't know what it means. You won't really know unless you actually ask them, and we jump to conclusions and judgements about what it means; and we don't engage the person to find out, because our heart has got the judgement and the offence in it already. So if you've got offence in your heart, people will offend you all the time. If you're offended with your father or your mother, you'll be offended by authority figures all your life. You won't even see possibility that you could be wrong. You will interpret their actions always in terms of what's in your heart.
That's why your heart's so important. That's what is the cause of so many problems in marriages. We miscommunicate; and instead of asking for clarification, we jump to conclusions about what that might have meant - out of what's in our heart. Our heart then defiles the relationship. That's why it says to 'guard your heart'.
Hebrews 12:15 - "beware, lest you fall from the grace of God, and a root of bitterness springs up".
Where does it spring up? In your heart! Bitterness springs up when you've allowed offences to accumulate - you become angry, resentful, and then bitterness is there. When people are bitter, they don't even know why they're bitter; they're just negative about everything. They've long ago lost what caused them the problem, but the fruit of bitterness flows out of their life, and it says that it poisons every relationship.
It doesn't matter whether you're a pastor or not. It's got nothing to do with the role you play. It's got to do with your heart. If your heart's bitter, bitterness flows everywhere you are. You see why the heart's so important when you try to counsel people in marriage, or counsel people in life. If you just try to deal with behaviours, and don't deal with the heart you'll never get lasting change. They'll be inspired, but they won't change.
#5) The heart is the center of faith.
Proverbs 3:4-6 - "Trust in the Lord with all your... Heart!"
Trust is an issue of the heart. If you have experienced betrayal or disconnection in the earliest years of your life - say, if there was no bonding with a mother, then you've never learnt to trust, because the first bonding that would have formed trust has not been formed. So suspicion and distrust become the thing that grow in your heart, and affect all relationships.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart" - so trust is an issue of the heart.