In the Bible, the heart is the center of the human being, the place where thinking, will and feeling converge. Out of it flows life, and that is why it is the firewall of your life.
Where the Word Comes From
In Hebrew it is lev or levav, in Greek kardia. It does not mean feeling alone, but the innermost control center: mind, will, decision, conscience. When Samuel was looking for a king, God said: “Man looks at what is before his eyes, but YHWH looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). The heart is the true person.
Why It Often Gets Shrunk
Today “heart” stands for romance and feeling. For the Hebrews it was the control center of the whole person. That is why the heart decides what it lets in and what it turns away. It is the firewall: what gets through shapes the life.
What the Bible Means
“Guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23). The whole person stands or falls with what lives in the heart. That is also why healing is received in the heart, not with the head alone. What the heart takes in as true works its way all the way into the body.
“Guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it flow the springs of life.” Scripture presents the heart as the source of the whole life, the body included.
Proverbs 4:23In “broken heart syndrome” (takotsubo), a sudden emotional shock really does weaken the heart muscle through a flood of stress hormones. It looks like a heart attack, without any blocked vessels. The pain of the soul strikes the heart physically.
Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, first described in Japan in 1990Why This Sets You Free
If the heart is the firewall, then you get to choose what you let in. Fear and bitterness do not have to stay, and the Father’s agape is allowed in. Healing happens when the heart receives love as true and no longer wards it off. You are not at the mercy of things, you guard the gate.
In One Sentence
The heart is the control center and the firewall of the human being. What it lets in shapes life and body, and that is why healing is received there too.
Read On
Fear: The Root Beneath the Roots
Healing: God as Physician (Jehovah Rapha)
Plain Words: Terms Explained Honestly