Paradise Cafe Discussions - A Place For Bible Research And Christian Encouragement

This is absolutely true and is the real meaning of John 17:3, which tells us that the purpose of aionian life is so that we may be able to come to know God. Each aion or aeon will teach us a different facet of his personality.
It is not 'a taking in of knowledge' but a getting to know God and his son, through the various aeons.

Good day all ... :giverose:

You know, I had a 'taste' of 'emotionless' a couple of days ago :shocked: ... and ya know what ... it tastes AWFUL!!! :barf:

I couldn't help but think of our Lord at that time, and how he would have been, and how he would have wanted US to be ... and I think that I will take HIM before I take anything else ... :love::friends:

Our 'hearts' is what make us not only HUMAN ... but HOW we REFLECT the Father and the Son is it not!! :heartbeat:

That is why we are urged to PROTECT our hearts, SAFEGUARD our hearts, NOURISH our hearts and so on ...

Thinking on such scriptures as Prov. 4:23 for example ...

New International Version (©1984)
Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

New Living Translation (©2007)
Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.

Bible in Basic English
And keep watch over your heart with all care; so you will have life.

Young's Literal Translation
Above every charge keep thy heart, For out of it are the outgoings of life.

Why should we be so concerned about our heart and should we fear it or view it as something something as only 'treacherous'?

Prov. 21:2 is something to consider IMHO for if our heart could not be 'trained' or to 'guide' us in a POSITIVE way than how could the scripture above possibly come true and would the judging that is mentioned below be rather redundant as there would be no hope for our hearts at all as something that we 'could' come to 'trust' at least in some small to great measure?:dontknow:

New Living Translation (©2007)
People may be right in their own eyes, but the LORD examines their heart.

Bible in Basic English
Every way of a man seems right to himself, but the Lord is the tester of hearts.

When our 'hearts' are 'tested' or 'examines' by our Lord, may it prove to be as Matt. 5:8 says it CAN be ...

New International Version (©1984)
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Bible in Basic English
Happy are the clean in heart: for they will see God.

May we all continue to look forward with full and God-fearing hearts as we remain loyal and true to our Father and our Redeemer!!:happyheart::thumbsup:

Luv to all from a rambling BR :sheepy: :bouncyhearts:

Hello All- I'm new to the conversation, so bear with me.

Two things I wanted to bring up:

Heart- is not just about emotion but volition- the will to do something.
As in, he put his whole heart into building that house
or, I didn't have the heart to tell them the bad news.
When God circumcized our hearts, He not only changes the heart, but leaves His mark on it. But you have to be willing to let Him do it.

Second, when we talk about knowledge, we have to remember we are talking about God's knowledge, not depending on our own knowledge or reasoning of God's revelation.

Sounds good to me, Micah! Welcome!

Hi BR, and yes this is very important ... which is why we need the prayers of others for an "honest conscience" as spoken in Hebrews 13:18: "Carry on prayer for us, for we trust we have an honest conscience, as we wish to conduct ourselves honestly in all things," but, as the writer left out, we at times fail to be honest in all things.

That's because our heart is not always honest with us, for it conveniently forgets the past when sin encroaches to repeat what we might have sworn never to do again. The heart makes all the decisions in spite of the logical brain and our conscience which is constantly raising warning flags of the approaching sin we all do battle with.

:friends:

Exactly! and right on, Micah! Welcome to the forum!:thumbsup:

sw

Dear All

I totally agree and it is interesting how men can get a wrong interpretaion of the heart in the Scriptures, e.g when The Watchtower Society wrongly postulated.

If a person get a heart from a donor that was criminel or a maniack, the receiver would adopt the donors personality.

Pretty weird to get support for their ban on organ transplantations and with no anchoring in the Scriptures.

I believe that it can be expressed this way:

1. First the thoughts.

If we don't analyse wheter it is in harmony with Jesus Christs commandsments, seen in the principles of love.

2. Then acts in accordance to our own thoughts or Jesus Christs commandments.

3 Then it will result in positive or negative consequesces for us and others.

We have typical example with David, even that he appresiate Jehovahs law, he was unable to se his wrongdoing before Nathan confronted him with an example, where he put a deat penelty on his own head, but what did David do, he dressed himself in sack and ashes and repent and that is also our possibility before it is too late.

In question of Prayers, i think James he expressed it in a very good manner when he wrote in James chapter 5 versus 13 to 20:

13 Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.

14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:

15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.

16 Confess [your] faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.

18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.

19 Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;

20 Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.

Finally that we all can help eachother and not only the Elders, from an error, whether it is real or an imagination, due to our conscious, where we can be given comfort in our relation to our heavenly Father Jehovah and His Son Jesus Christ.

Hey there talkactive! :hibye:

One of your sentences struck a chord with me:coolmusic: ;) which of course leads me to thinking :thinking: and rambling ... :post:

You said,

I totally agree and it is interesting how men can get a wrong interpretaion of the heart in the Scriptures,

I think this is so true for various reasons ... and one thing that I got to thinking on is ...

Is our hearts ONLY EMOTIONAL?? :confused:

Welllllll ...

I tend to think NOT ... for isn't it our HEARTS that will RECOGNIZE our Lord's voice and be drawn to it? Does not the 'reasoning process' BEGIN there in our oh so vital organ of life?

For example, what about these couple of scriptures ...

Luke 24:25 ...

English Standard Version (©2001)
And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!

Heb. 4:12 ...

New International Version (©1984)
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.


Now going back to the meaning of the heart ...:heartbeat:

G2588 καρδία

kardia kar-dee'-ah

Prolonged from a primary κάρ kar (Latin cor, “heart”); the heart, that is, (figuratively) the thoughts or feelings (mind); also (by analogy) the middle: - (+ broken-) heart (-ed).

So, it would appear that not only our minds can think :huh: and ponder :thinking:but our hearts can as well can it not ...?:happyheart:

Our 'hearts' can have 'thought and intentions' as well ...

I decided to look up the meaning of 'intentions' and thought the meaning quite interesting ...

G1771 ἔννοια

ennoia en'-noy-ah

From a compound of G1722 and G3563; thoughtfulness, that is, moral understanding: - intent, mind.

G3563 νοῦς

nous nooce

Probably from the base of G1097; the intellect, that is, mind (divine or human; in thought, feeling, or will); by implication meaning: - mind, understanding. Compare G5590.


That these two faculties, the heart and mind, are so closely connected to each, or at least should strive to be, that we need BOTH to be able to TRULY ... BELIEVE ... and FEEL and ACT what it is to be Christlike inside and out!

For example, when Jesus spoke to the people what was he APPEALING to?

Was it just to their reasoning abilities or to their emotions as well? Which was to come FIRST? :dontknow:

Well, scripturally, Jesus was MOVED to pity when he saw the people, and his EMOTIONS carried him through to ACT and HELP on two different levels ... emotionally and intellectually ...

Is it not our emotional connection that LEADS us to repentance? Is it not having the FEELING of knowing we have done wrongs that cause us to want to stop? And then is it not our minds and intellect along with our hearts reasonings and determination that causes us to follow through on these feelings?

So, not only is our heart full of wonderful and beautiful emotions (yes sometimes bad ones in light of our imperfection, but they are for another time :P ) it can REASON as well and STIR us to make the intellectual connection as well ...

They go hand in hand with one another!

We NEED to have this emotion and instead of setting it on the back burner and looking at it as something that we need to control too much ... we need embrace our hearts responses and learn from them and grow from them if we truly want to be like our Lord and his Father in all things!!

I was kind of hoping for more input from Jem from where this discussion kind of started from ... but haven't seen them around?

I would sincerely like to know their thoughts and feelings as well ... :giverose:

Luv to ya'll very much ... BR :sheepy: :bouncyhearts:

That's so clearly true about the heart being more than emotion.

When our Lord gave the Sermon on the Mount he mentioned adultery:

YOU heard that it was said:


‘You must not commit adultery.’
Deuteronomy 5:18


But I say to YOU that everyone that keeps on looking at a woman so as to have a passion for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If, now, that right eye of yours is making you stumble, tear it out and throw it away from you. For it is more beneficial to you for one of your members to be lost to you than for your whole body to be pitched into Gehenna.
Matthew 5:27-29

By reason alone, it is a harsher law - much more strict, scarcely good news at-all. But imagine the hearts of those in the audience who had felt uncomfortable under the "sinless" leering of others - think of how powerless their husbands and fathers felt, especially when those doing so were religious leaders beyond criticism, ones who knew the loopholes of the law so
well.

Yet here was a teacher giving them a response to the "crime-with-impunity" - and attaching the notion of Gehenna to those who committed it. Which ordinary Jew would ever - ever! - have consider thinking such an end for a religious leader before that day!

Their hearts wouldn't just feel emotion, but intense gratitude to God that He has goodness in mind for them and had provided their relief. With so many souls hearing it, they wouldn't feel reserved at addressing the problem in the future, because God had revealed through Jesus a side - a spirit - to His loving kindness which the lawgivers had never taught.

Acts5v29

Dear All

I fully agree that we shall listen and get use of our symbolic heart and do our best to maintain a balance in our minds between knowledge and emotions, which train our conscience, as a result of our brain activity and not our physical heart, which is a warning organ, which hopefully will hurts when we are doing something that is wrong in accordance to Jesus Christs two Commandments.

The heart is a muscle, a real fantastic one, pumping 6 to 10.000 liters of blood everyday through our systems, where The Watchtower Society wrongly has interpreted and teach that it is the center for our personality, mind, thoughts, compassion and love, which is totally wrong.

What happen when a person hear the voice, of the right shepheard and the mind and conscious is tuned at the right frequency, it can sting in our hearts or we feel pain in our stomack, (Solar plexus) which is simply because we are born with a conscience and our nerve system send signals, that make influence at our body and organs and can lead to psychic or psycopsomatic ilness.

It is therefore very interesting to read what Paul he wrote in Hebrew chapter 10 verse 16:

16 This [is] the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;

We can't have something written on our physical hearts, wherefore it also is important to understand what Paul he wrote in Romans chapter 2 versus 12 to 16.

12 For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;

13 (For not the hearers of the law [are] just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:

15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and [their] thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)

16 In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.

A thief knows by "heart" that it is wrong to steal, but why does a person then steal, simply because the person had trained the consious in the wrong direction, like an when the Germans was listening to their Fuhrer and then suppres their conscious and emotions against others, do not feel any pain in their haerts, for the advantage of own demands, whereafter the person doesn't feel very much pain in the heart, maybe only get exited by the exitement, wheter to be discovered or not, during the wrongdoings with a rise in the puls.

It is therefore very important that our minds and consious has been trained by the right shepheard so our conscious works with us and we are able to resoning and reflect of and what the Scriptures tells us in question of the demands Jesus Christ he gave us humans, that we shall love Jehovah, and our naighbours as ourselves.

If we always compare our thoughts and motives in the principles of love, then our mind, consius and our physical heart and behaviour, will wittnesses who have teached our minds and conscious.

It is therefore always important that we listen and let our mind and conscieus be trained of the right teacher, Jesus Christ who was mirroring his Father, where we shall try to keep a balance between knowledge and emotions, in opposite case we will be potential wictims for doctrines of men and not doctrines from Jehovah and His son Jesus Christ, as stated and comes forth in the Scriptures as a refence list, if we for one or another reason have any doubts about what is wrong or right and whom we like to worship and are directing our love against.