Renovation of the Heart
The Heart in the System of Human Life (2|4)
Pages 25-30
• The Human Self Is Not Mysterious!
A Brief Initial Survey of the Six Human Dimensions
• Thought
• Feeling
• Will (Spirit, Heart)
• Body
TOGETHER read the devotional and the scripture.
INDIVIDUALLY take notes in your journal on what stands out.
Mark 7:20-21 (NIV) “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
1 Samuel 16:7 (NIV) The LORD said to Samuel, “…The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.
Hebrews 11:6 (NIV) Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
TOGETHER pray for one another.
INDIVIDUALLY answer the questions in your journal - process your devotional notes and pray.
The Human Self In Not Mysterious!
”God has created all things in such a way that they are inherently intelligible. - They have parts; these parts to form larger wholes, which in turn have properties that make possible relationships between larger wholes, which form still larger wholes, and so on. This basic structure of created reality applies to everything from an atom or grain of salt to the solar system or the galaxy, from thought or a feeling to a whole person or a social unit.”
What is your response to this statement?
A Brief Initial Survey of the Six Human Dimensions • Thought
“Thought is that which enables our will (or spirit) to range far beyond the immediate boundaries of our environment and the perceptions of our senses. Through it, our consciousness reaches into the depths of the universe, past, present, and future, by reasoning and scientific thinking, by imagination and art - and also by divine revelation, which comes to us mainly in the form of thought.”
What does this statement mean? Do you agree or disagree?
A Brief Initial Survey of the Six Human Dimensions • Feeling
“There is no feeling without something being before the mind in thought and no thought without some positive or negative feeling toward what is contemplated. What we call ‘indifference’ is never a total absence of feeling, positive and negative, but simply an unusually low degree of feeling, usually negative”
What role do feelings play in our current personal and social lives? Would you say you are (sometimes? never? always?) controlled by your feelings?
A Brief Initial Survey of the Six Human Dimensions • Will (Spirit, Heart)
“Without the inner yes there is no sin, for only that yes (or no) is just us. The thought of sin is not sin and is not even a temptation. Temptation is the thought plus the inclination to sin - possibly manifested by lingering over the thought or seeking it out. But sin itself is when we inwardly say yes to the temptation, we would do the deed, even though we do not actually do it. - What we feel and think (or can and should be) to a very large degree a matter of choice in competent adult persons, who will be very careful about what they allow their minds to dwell upon or what they allow themselves to feel.”
Do you agree or disagree with this explanation of temptation?
How does choice or volition depend upon thought and feeling? Why can’t we just change our will?
A Brief Initial Survey of the Six Human Dimensions • Body
“The body is not, in the biblical view, essentially evil, while it is infected with evil, it can be delivered. Spiritual formation is also and essentially a bodily process. It cannot succeed unless the body is also transformed. ”
What is your response to this statement? Do you agree or disagree?
EXTRA READING:
“When we are really honest with ourselves, we must admit that our lives are all that really belong to us. So it is how we use our lives that determines what kind of person we are. It is my deepest belief that only by giving our lives do we find life.”
- Cesar Chavez (1927 - 1993)