Physical heart-health is important, but spiritual heart-health is even more so. In the Bible King David is renowned as “a man after God’s own heart” — a man whose heart pleased his God and Maker. We are told (1st Samuel 16:7) that “…the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” David himself would later share the same conviction (that God delights in upright hearts) in his famous penitential psalm (51:6), “Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.”

What does God see in your heart?

God can look into the hearts of men, and we cannot. Or can we? Of course we cannot see into the hearts of other men, and they cannot see into our heart. But we can, to some degree at least, see into our own heart.

Walt Chantry, in writing about David, agrees, and adds an most important caveat —

“To some extent, I can look into my own heart as God can. No other man may do so. God and I have access to the inner workings of my heart (mind, emotions, will). However, as Jeremiah 17:9-10 tells us, ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? I the LORD search the heart and test the mind.’ There are depths to our sin which are self-deceiving.”

Plenty to think and pray about here. Also, make sure to make good use of your Bible, in accord with God’s instructions:

“How can va young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” Psalm 119:9-11, esv