{"id":145,"date":"2018-04-29T19:40:51","date_gmt":"2018-04-30T02:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/semperkeith.com\/wordpress\/?p=145"},"modified":"2019-11-19T10:56:33","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T18:56:33","slug":"belief-in-god-the-telltale-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/semperkeith.com\/wordpress\/2018\/04\/29\/belief-in-god-the-telltale-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"Belief in God \u2013 The Telltale Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo From<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI can’t believe in God; I won’t believe in God\u201d or \u201cI could believe in God with enough evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the honest thinker these positions on belief in God and His plan reveal something about whether or not a person has a built-in bias against the Creator in their heart. By \u201cheart\u201d of course I don’t mean the bio-mechanical pump that keeps you alive. I am referring to your \u201cheart of hearts\u201d where your conscience and deepest affections reside. Belief in God, or more specifically, completely trusting in His plan of Salvation or not is entirely an act of the will; a reflection of the state of the heart.<\/p>\n

The Bible is loaded with references regarding the heart. In fact, \u201cheart\u201d is used 832 times in the Bible. The first use is in Genesis 6:5-6, \u201cThen the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart<\/em> was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The heart \u2013 where a persons real thoughts and intentions (whether good or evil) reside and. where one also grieves. Here are a few examples: It is also the place of integrity (Genesis 20:6). A willing heart<\/strong> (Exodus 35:5). A gift for teaching<\/strong> in the heart (Exodus 35:34). An obstinate heart<\/strong> (Deuteronomy 2:30).<\/p>\n

There are many more attributes of the heart in the Bible but I think this is enough for now.<\/p>\n

It is my belief that when it comes to the question of a relationship to God, a person’s heart default is either inclined toward Him, or away from Him. This disposition (or bias) is a major factor in how God and even our own existence is perceived. For those inclined away from God, they are generally not too interested in searching for Him. If they do search, their search is influenced by their bias to not go about the search \u201ceven handed.\u201d They tend to pursue and cling to information and theories that lead away from the existence of God. In other words, they feed their bias position until it’s a impenetrable fortress. Some, while expressing that enough evidence could convince them, keep upping the ante to the point where a whole mountain of evidence would not be enough.<\/p>\n

There are those who have been in active rebellion against God for years who may realize (after connecting with God) that they were actually inclined toward Him the whole time. But for various reasons, they didn’t act on it until life’s experiences and circumstances brought them to saving trust.<\/p>\n

What does it take to have a right relationship with God? It takes a person who has it in their heart to \u201cseek Him.\u201d The Scripture says, \u201cBut from there, you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.\u201d (Deu 4:29). Considering this verse, it is ironic that many who (later in life) enter into a relationship with God discover, when they look back at their life, that through many circumstances and coincidences God was actually pursuing them. Jesus says that there is a figurative door on our hearts and it is locked from the inside. Perhaps this is you? If you hear Him knocking, open the door and let Him in (Rev 3:20).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo From \u201cI can’t believe in God; I won’t believe in God\u201d or \u201cI could believe in God with enough evidence.\u201d For the honest thinker these positions on belief in God and His plan reveal something about whether or not a person has a built-in bias against the Creator in their heart. By \u201cheart\u201d of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gods-plan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/semperkeith.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/semperkeith.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/semperkeith.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semperkeith.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semperkeith.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/semperkeith.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266,"href":"https:\/\/semperkeith.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions\/266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semperkeith.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/semperkeith.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semperkeith.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semperkeith.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}