Introduction to the Heart – What Is the Heart in the Bible? Guarding Your Heart and Its Treasure

What is the heart in the Bible, and why does Scripture place so much importance on guarding it? In this introductory message on the heart, Gene Edwards explores Proverbs 4:23: “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the springs of life.”

Building on his teaching concerning the body, soul, and spirit, Gene turns to a part of our spiritual life that can be more difficult to define: the human heart. Is the heart the soul? Is it the spirit? Rather than reducing it to either one, Gene offers a practical definition: the heart is the entrance and exit of our whole being. What we allow into our hearts will eventually reveal itself through our lives.

This becomes especially clear in Jesus’ teaching that the mouth speaks out of the heart. What occupies our conversation? What do we continually think about, value, pursue, or treasure? Over time, these things can reveal what has been allowed to take root within us.

Gene also considers what Scripture says about guarding the heart, having a heart established by grace, being pure in heart, and recognizing the deeper motives that may remain hidden even from ourselves. Drawing from Proverbs 4, Hebrews 13, Galatians 5, Matthew, Jeremiah 17, and other passages, he shows why the Lord is deeply concerned with what is taking place in our hearts.

Yet this message is not simply about examining what is wrong within us. Its destination is Christ.

Whatever may have occupied the heart in the past, Gene emphasizes that the Lord can renew, purge, cleanse, and establish it. A new treasure can enter. Using the picture of priming a water pump, he describes what can happen as Christ continually becomes the treasure of the heart: eventually, what has been placed within begins to flow outward.

The question therefore becomes intensely practical: What is your treasure?

For the Christian, the ultimate treasure of the heart is the Lord Jesus Christ. As Christ increasingly fills the heart, He increasingly becomes what flows from the believer’s life.

This message serves as an introduction to Gene Edwards’ teaching on the heart and the deeper Christian life.