Loving the Lord Thy God With All Thy Heart
“Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.” Confucius
Jesus told us that the seed is sown in our hearts, everybody’s heart, without exception. We have likened the seed to His word and His word, I feel, is the first and second great commandments. So, it is not a coincidence that Jesus referred to the heart first, when He listed off the “ALL” requirements dealing with our insides. Given that the heart is mentioned first, it has to be very important.
Jesus referred to the heart often. For example,
“Mark 7:20 And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. 21For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: 23All these evil things come from within, and defile the man..”
Luke 8:45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.
I grew up thinking that all these references to the heart was something very methaphorical, symbolic, or to be honest, even weird and strange. Out of respect for the Savior, I figured He knew what he was talking about. But, the heart is a muscle that pumps blood. People have heart attacks and die because the heart stops working properly. Hearts get clogged up, require pace makers and get operated on. I could see the connection between a blood pumping muscle with valves and a water pump in a car that I am working on but I could hardly see that connection with all of these spiritual concepts. Could the Savior been ignorant about anatomy and could He really be referring to the brain, a little higher up in the body? Ah, the brain makes more sense since it is where all the thinking happens. I see an attractive girl with my eyes, the signals go to my brain, I begin having inappropriate thoughts and it’s, well, the brain that is having those thoughts, not the heart.
But, it is not just the Savior who is guilty of this misplaced anatomy. How many love songs refer to the heart? In the volumes that have been written about love, the heart is almost always mentioned. Come to speak of it, the Savior is not unique in saying to love with all your heart. How many lovers have said to each other, “I love you with all my heart”? But do they, really?
Thinking With All of Thy Heart
Thanks to modern day science, we are finding out that the heart is much more than a blood pumping muscle. About 65% of the heart is made up of brain like neuron cells. They are not just muscle cells, they are similar to brain cells! It is also known that the heart is in close communication with the brain.
Here are some quotes from Joseph Pearce, a leading neuroscientist,
“Neurocardiologist have found that 60 to 65% of the cells of the heart are actually neural cells, not muscle cells as was previously believed. They are identical to the neural cells in the brain, operating through the same connecting links called ganglia, with the same axonal and dendritic connections that take place in the brain, as well as through the very same kinds of neurotransmitters found in the brain.
“Quite literally, in other words, there is a "brain" in the heart, whose ganglia are linked to every major organ in the body, to the entire muscle spindle system that uniquely enables humans to express their emotions. About half of the heart's neural cells are involved in translating information sent to it from all over the body so that it can keep the body working as one harmonious whole. And the other half make up a very large, unmediated neural connection with the emotional brain in our head and carry on a twenty-four-hour-a-day dialogue between the heart and the brain that we are not even aware of.”
“Quite literally, in other words, there is a "brain" in the heart, whose ganglia are linked to every major organ in the body, to the entire muscle spindle system that uniquely enables humans to express their emotions. About half of the heart's neural cells are involved in translating information sent to it from all over the body so that it can keep the body working as one harmonious whole. And the other half make up a very large, unmediated neural connection with the emotional brain in our head and carry on a twenty-four-hour-a-day dialogue between the heart and the brain that we are not even aware of.”
“The heart responds to messages sent to it from the emotional brain, which has been busy monitoring the interior environment of dynamic states such as the emotions and the auto-immune system, guiding behavior, and contributing to our sense of personal identity. The emotional brain makes a qualitative evaluation of our experience of this world and sends that information instant-by-instant down to the heart. In return, the heart exhorts the brain to make the appropriate response. Of course all of this is on the non-verbal level.”
“In other words, the responses that the heart makes affect the entire human system. Meanwhile, biophysicists have discovered that the heart is also a very powerful electromagnetic generator. It creates an electromagnetic field that encompasses the body and extends out anywhere from eight to twelve feet away from it. It is so powerful that you can take an electrocardiogram reading from as far as three feet away from the body. The field the heart produces is holographic, meaning that you can read it from any point on the body and from any point within the field. No matter how microscopic the sample is, you can receive the information of the entire field. The intriguing thing is how profoundly this electromagnetic field effects the brain. All indications are that it furnishes the whole radio wave spectrum from which the brain draws its material to create our internal experience of the world.”
“Perhaps most importantly, we now know that the radio spectrum of the heart is profoundly affected by our emotional response to our world. Our emotional response changes the heart's electromagnetic spectrum, which is what the brain feeds on. Ultimately, everything in our lives hinges on our emotional response to specific events.”
“In other words, the responses that the heart makes affect the entire human system. Meanwhile, biophysicists have discovered that the heart is also a very powerful electromagnetic generator. It creates an electromagnetic field that encompasses the body and extends out anywhere from eight to twelve feet away from it. It is so powerful that you can take an electrocardiogram reading from as far as three feet away from the body. The field the heart produces is holographic, meaning that you can read it from any point on the body and from any point within the field. No matter how microscopic the sample is, you can receive the information of the entire field. The intriguing thing is how profoundly this electromagnetic field effects the brain. All indications are that it furnishes the whole radio wave spectrum from which the brain draws its material to create our internal experience of the world.”
“Perhaps most importantly, we now know that the radio spectrum of the heart is profoundly affected by our emotional response to our world. Our emotional response changes the heart's electromagnetic spectrum, which is what the brain feeds on. Ultimately, everything in our lives hinges on our emotional response to specific events.”
So, it looks like Jesus didn’t have His anatomy wrong after all, go figure. It is amazing that, not only Jesus, but many of the ancients understood the importance of the heart as a thinking and feeling center of our being. For example,
Luke 6: A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.
The relationship that the heart has with the brain, the mind, of course, explains why we must love the Lord our God with all of our heart and with all of our mind, they are in tandem. If we are obeying the first commandment, that relationship is in perfect balance. By being in perfect balance, the full power, the fruits of the first commandment can be released. Jesus has said, “All things are possible to them who believe.” There it is again, “all” things. Only the Redeemer could say something so bold, and get away with it. Believe in what? Believe on His word. What is His word?, the first great commandment. Therefore, once we have mastered the first commandment, all things are possible to us.
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