Receiving the Word with the heart (Victor's Mentality 51)

Glory to God. It is a pleasure and a privilege to be here to share God’s Word with you. My prayer is that God's word will bless every heart.

As we draw toward the close of this series, we have been considering for over a year the victor’s mentality of a believer. Right now, we are looking at the sword of the Spirit as the divine weapon God has empowered us with to keep winning in life.

From Ephesians 6:17:
“And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

For the past two articles, I have been sharing the characteristics of the Word of God from Hebrews 4:12:
“For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
 
The final characteristic I want to share regarding the Word of God is this: the Word of God is a discerner of the heart.
Last week, we saw how the Word of God affects the total man. But when we talk about the heart, we are talking about the driver of the total man. The heart is the idea behind every move. The reason we do what we do is because of the disposition of the heart. The reason you desire what you desire is tied directly to the state of your heart.

No wonder the Bible speaks of the complex nature of the heart. Jeremiah 17:10 tells us that the Lord searches the hearts of men. That alone speaks to just how deep and layered the human heart truly is. There are times when we do not fully know what we are capable of, simply because we have not yet fully understood our own hearts.

But here is the good news: the Word of God is the discerner of the thought process and the intent of the heart. It accurately evaluates the posture of our hearts, whether they are heavenly and Christ-focused, or earthly and self-focused.

With that foundation, I want us to move into a new angle of this study and consider how to handle the Word of God. There are three things I want to discuss:
1. Handling the Word with the heart
2. Handling the Word with the mouth
3. Handling the Word with the hand

1. Handling the Word with the heart

The first thing every heart needs is the gospel, which is the Word of God. That is how we get saved. At salvation, when the gospel is preached, the heart connects with it through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, and faith rises within to believe God and receive salvation. This means no man can be saved until the Word of God has reached his heart. And in the same way, no believer can be transformed until the Word of God has truly reached the heart. That is how important the heart is when it comes to handling the Word of God.

The writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 4:2: “For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.”

He is saying that the same gospel we preach today is the same gospel that was preached to them. Yet it did not profit them, and many perished, because the word was not mixed with faith in their hearts.

Think about it this way. Just as the physical heart pumps blood, which carries oxygen through haemoglobin to sustain physical life, the spiritual heart receives the Word of God, which produces faith. And faith is what enables a believer to breathe spiritually, to live and walk in the life God has given. The heart becomes the place of spiritual respiration, where faith is generated, sustained, and circulated through one’s life.

So the Word can be powerful, active, and clearly preached, just as it was preached to the children of Israel, and yet remain ineffective in a person’s life if it does not enter the heart through faith.

Just hearing the Word of God is not enough. It requires a response. The Word must be received, believed, and mixed with faith. To mix the Word with faith means accepting it inwardly as truth. It means the Word becomes the lens through which you see and reference your life. It means your heart and the Word of God become one. You agree with it. You believe it to be true in your life. It must settle so deeply into your heart that it reshapes your entire belief system and your convictions.

You must reach the point where you are fully persuaded by the Word of God, just as Abraham was in Romans 4:19, a place where the Word becomes the final authority and everything else aligns with it.

But as I close today's article, let me ask you something personal: what has God spoken to you in His Word that you are still struggling to believe? If you are struggling to believe it, it is likely because you have not yet allowed it to truly penetrate your heart. And when the Word has not penetrated the heart, faith cannot produce the transformation and regeneration you are hoping for.

So receive the Word of God into your heart today. Let it go deep. And it shall be well with you.

Brethren, prayerfully meditate on these things.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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