Meanings of the Word "Hearts" in the Scriptures

Elder Holland Safety for the Soul

The Savior warned that in the last days even those of the covenant, the very elect, could be deceived by the enemy of truth. If we think of this as a form of spiritual destruction, it may cast light on another latter-day prophecy. Think of the heart as the figurative center of our faith. Then consider Jesus’s declaration that in the last days “men’s hearts [shall fail] them.”

Hearts and Desire

Elder Russell M. Nelson “Decisions for Eternity,” October 2013

We can change our behavior. Our very desires can change. How? There is only one way. True change—permanent change—can come only through the healing, cleansing, and enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He loves you—each of you! He allows you to access His power as you keep His commandments, eagerly, earnestly, and exactly. It is that simple and certain. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of change!

Hearts and Understanding

2 Nephi 16:10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes—lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and be healed.

Mosiah 12:27

Ye have not applied your hearts to understanding; therefore, ye have not been wise. Therefore, what teach ye this people?

A Mighty Change of Heart

Mosiah 5:2 And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.

Alma 5:14 And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?

A Broken Heart & Contrite Spirit

3 Nephi 9:19-20 And ye shall offer up unto me no more the shedding of blood; And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost.

2 Nephi 2:7–8 Behold, he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered.

Hearts and Sanctification and Yielding our Hearts

Mosiah 4:2 And they had viewed themselves in their own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth. And they all cried aloud with one voice, saying: O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified; for we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Helaman 3:35 Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God.

The Word of the Lord Written in our Hearts

Mosiah 13:11 And now I read unto you the remainder of the commandments of God, for I perceive that they are not written in your hearts; I perceive that ye have studied and taught iniquity the most part of your lives.

Jeremiah 31:33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Hebrews 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

Hearing the Word of the Lord in our Hearts

Elder Neil L. Andersen, “Faith Is Not by Chance, but by Choice,” October 2015

Addressing honest questions is an important part of building faith, and we use both our intellect and our feelings. The Lord said, “I will tell you in your mind and in your heart.” Not all answers will come immediately, but most questions can be resolved through sincere study and seeking answers from God. Using our mind without our heart will not bring spiritual answers. “The things of God knoweth no man, but [through] the Spirit of God.” And to help us, Jesus promised us “another Comforter” and called Him “even the Spirit of truth.”

2 Nephi 33:1 And now I, Nephi, cannot write all the things which were taught among my people; neither am I mighty in writing, like unto speaking; for when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men.

3 Nephi 11:3 And notwithstanding it being a small voice it did pierce them that did hear to the center, insomuch that there was no part of their frame that it did not cause to quake; yea, it did pierce them to the very soul, and did cause their hearts to burn.

Stony Heart verses a Heart of Flesh

Ezekiel 11:19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:

Satan Has Hold on the Hearts of Men

Helaman 6:30 And behold, it is he who is the author of all sin. And behold, he doth carry on his works of darkness … from generation to generation according as he can get hold upon the hearts of the children of men.

Helaman 6:17 For behold, the Lord had blessed them so long with the riches of the world that they had not been stirred up to anger, to wars, nor to bloodshed; therefore they began to set their hearts upon their riches; yea, they began to seek to get gain that they might be lifted up one above another; therefore they began to commit secret murders, and to rob and to plunder, that they might get gain.

1 Nephi 22:26 And because of the righteousness of his people, Satan has no power; wherefore, he cannot be loosed for the space of many years; for he hath no power over the hearts of the people, for they dwell in righteousness, and the Holy One of Israel reigneth.

Mosiah 26:3 And now because of their unbelief they could not understand the word of God; and their hearts were hardened.

Other Phrases

·         A Broken Heart and Contrite Spirit

·         A mighty change of heart

·         Yielding our Hearts

·         Full Purpose of Heart

·         Clean Hands and a Pure Heart

·         My heart pondereth

·         Prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord

·         A forgiving heart

·         Trust in the Lord with all your heart…

Deep Obedience - Exact Obedience brings Miracles and Gospel Blessings

Elder Nelson said a mission is an exercise in obedience training. “Obedience brings success; exact obedience brings miracles.”

“Deep Obedience"

Kim B. Clark

Obedience connects us to the Savior and opens channels for His love and power to flow into us, much like life-giving nutrients flow from the trunk of a tree into its branches. The Savior said:

I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; . . .

These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.²

The Lord gives us commandments so that we might have His love, joy, and power in our lives. When we disobey those commandments, we weaken our connection to Him. If we do not repent, we become cut off from the source of divine power and joy in life. But the more we obey His commandments, the more we draw near to Him, the stronger the connection becomes, the greater the joy we experience, and the more we become like Him. We abide in Christ, and we prosper in the land. 

Once we see commandments as a blessing, our whole attitude towards obedience changes. Obedience stops being something that weighs on us because we are supposed to do it and becomes something we want to do because we know it brings blessings and joy, and we know it is the way to become more like Christ. The kind of obedience that connects us to Christ and brings divine love, power, and joy into our lives is not a reluctant, surface kind of obedience. It is obedience of the whole heart and soul.  It is deep obedience. 

President Ezra Taft Benson described that change of attitude and deep obedience in this way:  

“When obedience ceases to be an irritant and becomes our quest, in that moment God will endow us with power.”³

We have been called to discipleship and leadership in the great work of the Lord in the last dispensation. And the way forward and upward, the way to prosper in the land, is deep obedience to the Lord.

As we read section 59 together, I will highlight five dimensions of deep obedience:

(1) love God with all your heart;

(2) walk the strait and narrow path;

(3) bring to the Lord a sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit;

(4) keep the Sabbath Day holy; and

(5) do all these things with gratitude and a cheerful heart.

How Can We Overcome Pride? and A Personal Checklist for Pride

Pride

See Also: Humility and Meekness

Pres. Benson, Chapter 18: Beware of Pride

https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-of-presidents-of-the-church-ezra-taft-benson/chapter-18-beware-of-pride?lang=eng

President Uchtdorf’s talk on pride – Oct. 2010:

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2010/10/pride-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng

Pride a gateway sin that leads to a host of other human weaknesses. In fact, it could be said that every other sin is, in essence, a manifestation of pride. -Uchtdorf

Video clip of this quote 8:42 minutes – 10:19

We Must Not Inhale

When I was called as a General Authority, I was blessed to be tutored by many of the senior Brethren in the Church. One day I had the opportunity to drive President James E. Faust to a stake conference. During the hours we spent in the car, President Faust took the time to teach me some important principles about my assignment. He explained also how gracious the members of the Church are, especially to General Authorities. He said, “They will treat you very kindly. They will say nice things about you.” He laughed a little and then said, “Dieter, be thankful for this. But don’t you ever inhale it.”

That is a good lesson for us all, in any calling or life situation. We can be grateful for our health, wealth, possessions, or positions, but when we begin to inhale it—when we become obsessed with our status; when we focus on our own importance, power, or reputation; when we dwell upon our public image and believe our own press clippings—that’s when the trouble begins; that’s when pride begins to corrupt.

Uchtdorf on how do we Conquer pride?  

So how do we conquer this sin of pride that is so prevalent and so damaging? How do we become more humble?

It is almost impossible to be lifted up in pride when our hearts are filled with charity. “No one can assist in this work except he shall be humble and full of love.” 22 When we see the world around us through the lens of the pure love of Christ, we begin to understand humility.

Some suppose that humility is about beating ourselves up. Humility does not mean convincing ourselves that we are worthless, meaningless, or of little value. Nor does it mean denying or withholding the talents God has given us. We don’t discover humility by thinking less of ourselves; we discover humility by thinking less about ourselves. It comes as we go about our work with an attitude of serving God and our fellowman.

Humility directs our attention and love toward others and to Heavenly Father’s purposes. Pride does the opposite. Pride draws its energy and strength from the deep wells of selfishness. The moment we stop obsessing with ourselves and lose ourselves in service, our pride diminishes and begins to die.

Elder Bednar:

We will only receive spiritual gifts and talents when we are in the right place at the right time so that the Lord can use us to bless somebody else.

I think in the culture of the Church we have a peculiar way of talking about talents like, “I have these talents” and sometimes there is an arrogance about that, like “Aren’t you so lucky that I am bringing my talent to bless you?”  In which case I think there is no talent, it has been removed.

So it is not just that you have one talent or a particular capacity, there is a wide range of talents and capacities with which the Lord can bless you with because you will be in the right place at the right time and that talent or gift will be used to bless someone else. We only have these so we can be the conduit through whom God can bless people.

So if you are striving not to get them as if they are trophies to display, but if the real intent of our heart is to be good, to be worthy, so that God if he needed me could use me.

How Do We Combat Pride?

1-      Uchtdorf - Charity Conquers pride:  

So how do we conquer this sin of pride that is so prevalent and so damaging? How do we become more humble?

It is almost impossible to be lifted up in pride when our hearts are filled with charity. “No one can assist in this work except he shall be humble and full of love.” 22 When we see the world around us through the lens of the pure love of Christ, we begin to understand humility.

Some suppose that humility is about beating ourselves up. Humility does not mean convincing ourselves that we are worthless, meaningless, or of little value. Nor does it mean denying or withholding the talents God has given us. We don’t discover humility by thinking less of ourselves; we discover humility by thinking less about ourselves. It comes as we go about our work with an attitude of serving God and our fellowman.

Humility directs our attention and love toward others and to Heavenly Father’s purposes. Pride does the opposite. Pride draws its energy and strength from the deep wells of selfishness. The moment we stop obsessing with ourselves and lose ourselves in service, our pride diminishes and begins to die.

2-      Recognize the enabling power of the atonement in our lives.

When we can recognize the enabling power of the atonement in our lives this solves the problem of pride. We realize how much the Lord is helping us to improve and do well which keeps us from getting puffed up about ourselves.

Read Jacob 4:6

 6 Wherefore, we search the prophets, and we have many revelations and the spirit of ^aprophecy; and having all these ^bwitnesses we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken, insomuch that we truly can ^ccommand in the ^dname of Jesus and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea.

Jacob 4:6-7, 8-10– notice that verse 7 begins with “Nevertheless” - “Nevertheless” is what they call a connecting word because it shows that the two sentences are a related thought.  

 7 Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our ^aweakness that we may know that it is by his ^bgrace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things.

Ether 12:27 has a similar theme.

I think there are many times when Grace and the enabling power are operating in our lives and it is like when “as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.” In our pride, we think we are becoming something on our own.

Pride - A Personal Checklist (list taken from Pres. Benson’s talk)

·         Pride is a very misunderstood sin, and many are sinning in ignorance. In the scriptures there is no such thing as righteous pride. Therefore, we must understand how God uses the term so we can understand the language of holy writ and profit thereby. 

·         The central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. Enmity means “hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition.” It is the power by which Satan wishes to reign over us.

·         Pride is a sin that can readily be seen in others but is rarely admitted in ourselves. 

General categories of pride:

   Disobedience is essentially a prideful power struggle 

   Selfishness is one of the more common faces of pride. 

§  self-conceit, self-seeking

§  self-gratification, worldly self-fulfillment

§  self-pity

Pride in not just those on the top looking down; far more common is pride from the bottom looking up, it is manifest in:

·         faultfinding, gossiping, backbiting

·         murmuring

·         living beyond our means

·         envying, coveting

·         withholding gratitude and praise that might lift another

·         being unforgiving and jealous

Another face of pride is contention:

·         arguments

·         fights

·         unrighteous dominion

·         generation gaps

·         divorces

·         spouse abuse

·         riots, disturbances

·         Contention in our families drives the Spirit of the Lord away. It also drives many of our family members away. 

Our enmity toward God takes on many labels:

·         rebellion

·         hard-heartedness

·         stiff-neckedness

·         unrepentant

·         puffed up

·         easily offended

·         sign seekers

·         wish God would agree with them

·         aren’t interested in changing opinion to agree with God’s

Enmity toward our fellowmen:

·         tempted daily to elevate ourselves above others 

·         desire to diminish others

·         pit their intellects, opinions & works against others

·         compare wealth, talents, or any other worldly measuring device against others

·         stand more in fear of men’s judgment than of God’s judgment

·         “What will men think of me?” weighs heavier than “What will God think of me?”

·         The proud love “the praise of men more than the praise of God.

·         Our motives for the things we do are where the sin is manifest. 

“Pride a gateway sin that leads to a host of other human weaknesses. In fact, it could be said that every other sin is, in essence, a manifestation of pride.”  –President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Pres. Uchtdorf – The Gift of Grace - Apr. 2015

What does the story of Simon teach us about pride?

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/the-gift-of-grace?lang=eng

 

In the Bible we read of Christ’s visit to the home of Simon the Pharisee.

Outwardly, Simon seemed to be a good and upright man. He regularly checked off his to-do list of religious obligations: he kept the law, paid his tithing, observed the Sabbath, prayed daily, and went to the synagogue.

But while Jesus was with Simon, a woman approached, washed the Savior’s feet with her tears, and anointed His feet with fine oil.

Simon was not pleased with this display of worship, for he knew that this woman was a sinner. Simon thought that if Jesus didn’t know this, He must not be a prophet or He would not have let the woman touch him.

Perceiving his thoughts, Jesus turned to Simon and asked a question. “There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: … one owed five hundred pence, … the other fifty.

“And when they [both] had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most?”

Simon answered that it was the one who was forgiven the most.

Then Jesus taught a profound lesson: “Seest thou this woman? … Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.”24

Which of these two people are we most like?

Are we like Simon? Are we confident and comfortable in our good deeds, trusting in our own righteousness? Are we perhaps a little impatient with those who are not living up to our standards? Are we on autopilot, going through the motions, attending our meetings, yawning through Gospel Doctrine class, and perhaps checking our cell phones during sacrament service?

Or are we like this woman, who thought she was completely and hopelessly lost because of sin?

Do we love much?

Do we understand our indebtedness to Heavenly Father and plead with all our souls for the grace of God?

When we kneel to pray, is it to replay the greatest hits of our own righteousness, or is it to confess our faults, plead for God’s mercy, and shed tears of gratitude for the amazing plan of redemption?25

Salvation cannot be bought with the currency of obedience; it is purchased by the blood of the Son of God.26 Thinking that we can trade our good works for salvation is like buying a plane ticket and then supposing we own the airline. Or thinking that after paying rent for our home, we now hold title to the entire planet earth.