The Heart Series, Part One

The Word of God is so much more than ancient history or the writings of mere men as some would put upon you.  It is so phenomenally much more than the casual reader could ever comprehend.  Outsiders—strangers—can never know.  An intimacy must first be enjoined.  The revelation of the scriptures is in fact a birthright.  The disciples asked Jesus why He spoke in parables in Matthew 13:10-16:

10  And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?

11  He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

12  For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.

13  Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.

14  And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:

15  For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

16  But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.

God’s revelation of salvation and truth cannot be attained casually or without price.  But, it is reached by them who seek with all their hearts, coming prepared to follow Jesus. 

Proverbs 22:29:

Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.

If the diligent stand before kings, what do you think is required to stand before the king of kings if it is not diligence upon diligence?  This diligence is not a product of man.  It is supplied by the Spirit of God.

Revelation by birth is the only way.  Jesus calls this place “born again.”  Jesus said in John 3:3:

...Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

This is when revelation begins.  At this juncture, you become a son or daughter of God: the intimacy of family.  This place of revelation is not reached through scholarship.  To the contrary, it is reached through childlike faith.  Jesus said in Matthew 18:3:

...Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Are you ready to seek with all your heart?  Do you desire the pure revelation of God’s truth?  Would you like to have all your sin and shame erased?  Would you like a reason to live that is eternal?  Today, do you want to be born into the house of God?  GodSaidManSaid has good news for you.  The Word of God tells us that today is the day of salvation.  Click onto “Further With Jesus” for childlike instructions and immediate entry into the Kingdom of God.  NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT.

GOD SAID, Proverbs 17:22:

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.

GOD SAID, Proverbs 15:15:

All the days of the afflicted are evil: but he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.

GOD SAID, Matthew 12:34:

O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

GOD SAID, Proverbs 16:9:

A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.

GOD SAID, Genesis 6:5:

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.

MAN SAID: The heart has no cognitive skills.  The Bible’s accounts are to be taken metaphorically, if at all, and certainly not to be taken literally.

Now THE RECORD.  These are the very last days.  Wickedness abounds and the love of many is waxing cold.  Jesus said of the very last days in Matthew 24:21-22:

21  For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

22  And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.

These are dangerous times.  Staying close is critical. 

This is a three-part series concerning the heart.  The heart plays a very central role in eternal life.  Romans 10:10:

For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

This is a most powerful series.  Thank you for coming.  In this series, we will revisit Biblical concepts and allow science to again confirm the inerrancy of Holy Scripture and again confirm that God is that this God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Part One establishes that the heart can be made merry or sad, and that it’s a thinking, functioning part of the human psyche.

Part Two will deal with the heart and its place in life’s spiritual nomenclature.  We will also discover how to keep it.

Part Three will address how to feed a heart and ensure dominant victory.

Isn’t it amazing that when science discovers a marvelous truth it’s ballyhooed around the world, yet the same truth, which has been in the Word of God for thousands of years, is not considered necessary to mention?  Some fields of endeavor would call such a thing plagiarism.

The thoughts of our hearts will define us and our future.

God speaks of a merry heart doing good like a medicine, and that a broken spirit dries up the bones.  Remember, this passage was authored thousands of years before science began to certify its truth.

The bones in our bodies are key to excellent living and their role is much more than simply structure to hang organs and flesh upon.  Inside our bones is found a spongy, moist tissue called bone marrow where all of our body’s blood cells are produced.  The blood cells begin life in the moist marrow as stem cells.  These stem cells divide and form the various cells that make up our blood and immune system.  Out of this moist bone marrow come red blood cells which carry oxygen and nutrients to the body, and also the white blood cells that fight infection.  Without bone marrow there could be no human life.

The amazing bone is strong as steel but light as aluminum, and inside the cancellous bones of the ribs, vertebrae, sternum, and pelvis is bone marrow, a moist hive of activity.  Imagine, two million red blood cells are being replaced every second and they’re being generated in the body’s bone marrow.  The red blood cells carry oxygen and nutrients to the body and the white blood cells defend against disease.  Both find their beginnings in moist bone marrow.

New fields of study have arisen concerning white blood cells and immune system malfunction called “psychoneuroimmunology” or “neuroimmunomodulation.”  It is now known that stress, depression, sorrow, grief, negative thoughts, anger, etc., have a direct, negative effect on white blood cells.  Conversely, happy, joyful, restful, positive thoughts have a direct, positive effect on white and red blood cell production and activity.  Remember, red blood cells bring oxygen and nutrients to the body, and white blood cells defend against disease and sickness.

Dr. Lee Berk, a researcher at Loma Linda University School of Medicine’s Department of Clinical Immunology, has shown that laughter lowers serum cortisol levels.  Cortisol is part of the body’s fight-or-flight response, but much of it can dampen immune response and shut down the very process that attacks life-threatening microbes or the process that keeps malignant cells from proliferating into an invasive tumor.  Laughter also increases the amount of activated T lymphocytes, increases the number and activity of natural killer cells, and increases the number of T cells that carry helper and suppressor receptors.  Simply put, the immune system is positively benefited by laughter.

Our first line of defense against infectious organisms trying to enter through our respiratory tract is salivary immunoglobulin A.  Confirmed research shows that salivary immunoglobulin A is lower when one is in a negative mood and higher on days when one is in a positive mood.  A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.  Dr. Berk’s research cited earlier also shows that laughter helps boost the production of NK cells, which fight upper respiratory infections, such as pneumonia and bronchitis.  Laughter boosts energy levels, strengthens organs, and increases circulatory capacity.  A few seconds of laughter could be as good as one minute of aerobic exercise.

Dr. William Fry, an emeritus associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Stanford University Medical School in California, weighs in with studies on laughter that reveal, among its many other benefits, that laughter produces increased activity of white blood cells, which fight disease.  Remember what the Bible records: A merry heart doeth good like medicine.

The following is an excerpt from an article in Ladies Home Journal, titled “30 Days to More Self-esteem:”

The latest scientific research shows that all our thoughts create chemicals in our body, called neuropeptides.  Happy thoughts produce chemicals that actually strengthen the body, and negative thoughts produce chemicals that weaken the body.  [End of quote]

Note that spiritual things such as thoughts produce physical things such as chemicals.

Our God, who created the body, gives explicit instructions in His owner’s manual, the Bible, concerning the attitude from which we should approach life.  Happy, cheerful, joyous, courageous, positive, and loving thoughts cause our bone marrow to produce red and white blood cells prolifically.  The red blood cells bring oxygen and life, and the white blood cells destroy infectious disease.  Thousands of years before man conceived this wisdom, God declared that a merry heart doeth good like a medicine—a medicine man can only dream of duplicating.

A final quote concerning a merry heart was found in a sub-headline in a USA Weekend tabloid dated May 30-June 1, 1997.  It reads, “More doctors insist: Laughter is a miracle drug.  Now some are even prescribing it.”  Unfortunately, the merry heart is becoming more and more scarce.  According to the World Health Organization, by the year 2020, depression will likely be the second leading cause of death and lost productivity, right behind cardiovascular disease.  The other half of Proverbs 17:22 says, “...but a broken spirit drieth the bones.”

You'll be amazed at what you hear next.  In an article in Psychology Today titled, “The Blues Are A Bone-Breaker,” research conducted by Dr. Ulrich Schweiger of the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Germany was cited.  Schweiger measured bone density of 18 depressed, hospitalized men and women and another group of 21 patients who were free of depression.  All were over the age of 40.  The results were shocking.  The research took place over a period of two years.  At the end of two years, Schweiger compared the bone density of both groups.  The depressed patients lost significantly more bone mass than the non-depressed.  The following is a direct quote from Dr. Schweiger.  He said, [It provides] “a vital link in explaining the increased mortality observed particularly in men with major depression.”

Proverbs 17:22:

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.

We will learn in the two following features how to maintain a merry heart.

Does the heart really think?  Could the scriptures that refer to the attributes of the heart 884 times be accurate in the most literal form?  Of course the answer is yes!

The following excerpts are from Deadly Emotions, by Dr. Don Colbert, published in 2003:

How can this be?  In recent years neuroscientists have discovered that the heart has its own independent nervous system.  At least forty thousand nerve cells (neurons) exist in a human heart.  That’s the same amount found in various subcortical (beneath the cerebral cortex) centers of the brain.  In other words, the heart is more than a mere biological pump.  These abundant nerve cells give it a thinking, feeling capability.

The heart’s “brain” and the nervous system relay messages back and forth to the brain in the skull, creating a two-way communication between these two organs.  In the 1970s, physiologists John and Beatrice Lacey of the Fels Research Institute found a flaw in current popular thinking about the brain.  The popular approach was to assume that the brain made all of the body’s decisions.  The Lacey’s research indicated otherwise.

Specifically, these researchers found that while the brain may send instructions to the heart through the nervous system, the heart doesn’t automatically obey.  Instead, the heart seems to respond at times as if it is “considering” the information that it has received.  Sometimes when the brain sends an arousal signal to the body in response to external stimuli, the heart speeds up, as might be expected.  On other occasions, however, the heart slows down while all other organs are aroused as expected.

The selectivity of the heart’s response suggested to the Lacey’s that the heart does not mechanically respond to the brain’s signals.  Rather, the heart seems to have an opinion of its own, which it communicates back to the brain.

What was even more interesting in the Lacey’s research was the fact that the messages that the heart sent to the brain seemed to be ones that the brain not only understood but obeyed.  In effect, heart and brain hold an intelligent dialogue.  At times the heart submits to the brain, and on other occasions the brain seems to submit to the heart.  The messages from the heart appear to be capable of affecting an individual’s behavior.

Again, Dr. Colbert:

The most powerful channel of heart communication to the body, however, is through the heart’s electromagnetic field, which is about five thousand times greater in strength than the electromagnetic field the brain produces.

Scientists are able to detect electronic information the heart sends through a brain-wave test called an electroencephalogram (EEG).  Gary Schwartz and his colleagues at the University of Arizona found in their experiments that neurological or other established communication pathways could explain the complex patterns of cardiac activity in our brain waves.  In other words, acting somewhat like military code breakers in World War II, these researchers had to learn, “the language of the heart.”  Their data showed the existence of direct energetic interaction between the electromagnetic field of the heart and that produced by the brain.

Finally, Dr. Colbert:

Author and scientist Paul Pearsall described an incident that occurred when he was speaking to an international group of psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers in Houston, Texas.  He was talking about his belief in the central role of the heart in both physical and spiritual life.  A physician came up to the microphone to share her story.  This is what she told Dr. Pearsall and the others present in that auditorium:

I have a patient, an eight-year-old little girl, who received the heart of a murdered ten-year-old girl.  Her mother brought her to me when she started screaming at night about her dreams of the man who had murdered her donor.  She said her daughter knows who it was.  After several sessions, I just could not deny the reality of what this child was telling me.  Her mother and I finally decided to call the police and, using the descriptions from the little girl, they found the murderer.  He was easily convicted with the evidence my patient provided.  The time, the weapon, the place, the clothes he wore, what the little girl he killed had said to him…everything the little heart transplant recipient reported was completely accurate.  [End of quotes]

You can be certain that new research forthcoming will expand dramatically on man’s understanding of the thinking heart.  According to the scriptures, the heart thinks and deals in matters that we respond to emotionally.  The old axiom, love is blind, meaning the heart makes choices that a person in his rational mind would reject, is obviously true.  The heart has a mind of its own.

The heart can be made merry or said and the results manifest themselves in very physical ways.  Yes, the heart thinks, playing a very cognitive role in our daily lives just like God said, and now thousands of years later, science confirms.  Stay tuned for excellent truth.

GOD SAID, Proverbs 17:22:

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.

GOD SAID, Proverbs 15:15:

All the days of the afflicted are evil: but he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.

GOD SAID, Matthew 12:34:

O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

GOD SAID, Proverbs 16:9:

A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.

GOD SAID, Genesis 6:5:

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.

MAN SAID: The heart has no cognitive skills.  The Bible’s accounts are to be taken metaphorically, if at all, and certainly not to be taken literally.

Now you have THE RECORD.

 

References:

Authorized King James Version

Colbert, D., M.D., Deadly Emotions, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville

Fackelmann, K., “The Cortisol Connection,” Science News, vol. 152, Nov. 29, 1997Martin, R. A. & J. P. Dobbin, “Sense of Humor, Hassels and Immunoglobin A: Evidence For a Stress-Moderating Effect of Humor,” International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, 1985

National Bone Marrow Transplant Link

Rogers, J., “The Blues Are a Bone-Breaker,” Psychology Today, May/June 2000

Wooten, P., Humor an Antidote for Stress, 1996

World Health Organization, Discover Magazine, Oct., 2000

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