What is the difference between what your heart thinks and what your brain thinks?
The word “brain” is not found in the Bible. Instead, we find the word “mind” used in connection with our thoughts. So, perhaps we could ask, “What is the difference, if any, between what your heart thinks and what your mind thinks?”
Let’s begin with a well-known verse from Proverbs 23:7 which says, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Now let’s read 1 Chronicles 22:7 where King David said to his son Solomon, “It was in my mind to build a house unto the name of the LORD my God.” When David said “It was in my mind,” he was obviously revealing to his son “what he was THINKING.” The truth is, the word “heart” and the word “mind” could be used interchangeably in these verses, for they come from the same Hebrew word meaning “the heart.” Strong’s Concordance states that this word is “very widely used for the feelings, the will and even the intellect.” In the New Testament their meanings differ slightly but are still vitally connected. In Vine’s Expository Dictionary he says that “the heart is used figuratively for the hidden springs of the personal life” and he goes on to say that it is “the seat of moral nature and spiritual life” and “includes the emotions, the reason and the will.” The word “mind” speaks of “the seat of reflective consciousness, comprising the faculties of perception and understanding, and those of feeling, judging and determining.” We see then that both the heart and mind involve one’s “inner self” and are connected with “the understanding, the conscience, the emotions, and the will.”
We may find it nearly impossible to differentiate between the heart and the mind, but a verse that I find helpful is Hebrews 4:12, which reads, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (NASB). The Word of God is able to penetrate our innermost being, distinguishing between the emotions of the soul and spirit, and judging every thought and motive that lies deep in our hearts. What the Word reveals about the heart of the man or woman without Christ is most solemn. Jeremiah 17:9-10 declares, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.” The Lord searched the hearts of men in Noah’s day and Genesis 6:5 tells us what He found, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Though God judged the earth for their wickedness, yet the heart of man remained unchanged. The Lord Jesus faithfully bore witness to this in Matthew 15:18-19 where He said, “Those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart: and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” Notice, the first thing mentioned is “evil thoughts,” for sin has its origin in one’s “thought life,” as we saw earlier in Proverbs 23:7, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
Thank God there is a remedy, for the Lord Jesus went to the cross to give men a new heart. He died for our sins and rose again and now, through His precious Word, He invites sinners to receive this blessed news into our hearts. Romans 10:9-10 proclaims, “That if thou shall confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness: and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (159.3) (DO)