I am glad you are taking the time to review this information. Through my education and into my practice, I have sought to understand how the Mind works in light of Gospel Truth. The field of psychology has developed over the years into a humanistic framework for understanding how the Mind works, suggesting therapies and interventions to heal disorder. After reviewing seminal psychological theories, it is evident that the pioneers have conceptualized the Mind’s framework very well. However, the concept of God is absent as fundamental to the design, and so the conclusions paint a dismal and primal image of mankind. My life’s work has become a persistent endeavor of seeking the Holy Spirit’s wisdom for understanding the inanimate forces that compel and attract the will.
This discussion carries a heavy weight as it reviews the condition of humanity after the fall in the Garden of Eden. Keep reading, because you will also encounter the process of our redemption. Brothers and sisters, I want you to imagine how, one day soon, the entire universe will be pristine: one pulse of harmony and gladness will sweep through creation. Life, light, and joy all flowing endlessly from the One who created it all, reaching every corner of infinite space. From the tiniest electron spinning in its orbit to the grandest galaxy making its gargantuan revolutions, everything, seen and unseen, in its pure and unadulterated beauty, will proclaim one unifying truth: God is love.
The Reality of the Mind
I believe it is important to clarify something that is hard for some Christians to accept or understand: you do have what is called a subconscious mind. The conscious Mind is to the physical brain what the subconscious mind is to the physical heart. Like the physical heart, the subconscious mind is automatic and always running without any conscious effort. Consider what it would require if we had to consciously maintain the proper rhythm of all the biological processes related to the heartbeat. The same is true for the subconscious mind. If you had to consciously maintain the proper psychological rhythms related to emotion and thought processing, your fallen nature would be overwhelmed and overcome.
With this understanding, the terms subconscious mind and the Heart are synonymous throughout this text. Essentially, the Heart is the hardware always running in the background, always attempting to reflexively keep you physically safe and secure in this world. Going forward, the conscious Mind will simply be referred to as the Mind. Essentially, the Mind is the leader of a human being, making well-informed decisions for the direction of existence.
This world aims to create patterns of distrust, gouging deep grooves of insecurity and doubt into the Heart. You were born into sin and carry an intrinsic sense of insecurity. We all do. The craving condition that has beset humanity can only be satisfied through the Love of a Creator God. Knowing this should encourage you to seek out what God has prescribed as the antidote for overwriting the unhelpful patterns of distrust and fear that have been set to default in your Heart by the reflections of this world.
The Heart and Mind in Scripture
When some Christians begin reflecting on the Heart in Scripture, Jeremiah 17:9 often comes to Mind:
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”
Proverbs 23:7 says:
“For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.”
The Bible is filled with verses related to the Mind and Heart, and these two are especially relevant. Jeremiah 17:9 suggests that the tendency of the Heart is to be deceitful, naturally wicked, and in a desperate condition of insecurity. Proverbs 23:7 adds perspective when it presents a choice to the Mind. “For as he thinks in his heart” is where the conditioning process takes place. From birth, the natural impulses of the Heart are insecure and vulnerable while the natural impulses of the Mind are egocentric and aggressive: two systems equally extreme in opposing directions toward achieving the same goal, which is to escape death. This creates quite the dilemma that, without intervention, will produce internal conflict in a person where they become desperate, reaching for anything to supply some immediate relief. This gives substance to what Paul says in Romans 7:24-25:
“O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the Mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.”
Jesus Christ our Lord is the only intervention that can save you from yourself. In Ezekiel 36:26, the Lord says:
“I will give you a new heart and a new mind. I will take away your stubborn heart of stone and give you an obedient heart.”
In Philippians 2:5, Paul writes about the new Mind God gives you:
“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”
The Mind of Jesus trusted His Father completely. The Mind of Jesus, while staying connected to the Father, behaved and communicated in a way that sent continual messages to His own Heart, conditioning it perfectly by consistently making choices that align with Truth. The Garden of Gethsemane is where the Mind of Jesus poured out the emotions of His Heart in a final plea to the Father. And yet the Mind of Jesus trusted His Father and made the choice to be completely vulnerable, completely insecure, and go to the Cross with a resilience that only God can provide.
The Mechanics of the Mind and Heart
The mechanics of the Heart now operate in survival mode, fundamentally operating from a place of fear rather than Love. The Heart was created to perform perfectly from a place of Love. Mechanically, it is a mystery why the Heart now desperately operates from a place of fear, always gravitating toward safety and security. The Heart will send emotional messages that elicit a stress response in the body to steer you into making conscious choices that are self-preserving and over-compensating. These are two cardinal traits of the Heart and Mind: the Heart’s primary concern is self-preservation, and the Mind’s natural inclination is to display just how capable it is at preserving self. Emotion is the messaging pathway the Heart uses to give information to the Mind, and the Mind will do well to include this information as relevant to exercising good judgment. However, when all relevant information is provided for making a choice, the Mind is the one responsible for choosing the direction a person goes.
Whatever a person consciously and continuously focuses on with the Mind will be realized and accepted by the Heart as instructions for creating expectations for living. The more congruent the Mind’s focus, the clearer the instructions are to the Heart. The more consistent the choices from the Mind, the more the Heart will be convinced of meeting what it assumes to be the right expectations, and will provide emotions back to the Mind in support of those chosen expectations. The Heart will do what it can to begin creating conditions that will easily meet those expectations. The Mind must be circumspect, diligently providing oversight to the Heart’s intrinsic impulse toward safety, security, and pleasure. While the Heart’s default setting is to avoid fearful conditions and gravitate toward pleasurable ones, the Heart can deceive the Mind into focusing in a direction that provides only the sensory evidence of seeming safety and security.
The Fall and Its Implications
The Heart is what Satan was after at the tree. With a conscious decision by Adam and Eve to disobey God, humanity forfeited the infinite safety and security of being naturally inclined to choose God’s way and use the imagination the way it was created to be used. Since the fall, human beings have exhibited a proclivity for gratifying the appetite through the five avenues of the senses. While the Heart was initially created to intrinsically bring about desirable experiences, the fallen nature has manipulated this ability into creating pleasurable external conditions. The desire to create attractive external conditions soothes egoistic internal conditions and elevates self-perceptions of value, worth, and preservation. This is a subconscious process used by the devil to flatter you into a false sense of safety and security. Affirming your ability to create protected pleasurable experiences for yourself, by yourself, is the lie the devil perpetuates. This is meant to keep you distracted from seeing your insecure and vulnerable condition as it really is, and from seeing God as the loving Defender and Protector of His creation.
In the garden, Adam and Eve felt insecure when they noticed they were naked. This insecurity was more than physical. It imparted a keen sense of their complete vulnerability in their separation from the Source of Life. The Heart was created to be the place where God reigned supreme, where mankind was to naturally commune with the Source of Life for eternity.
Now, there is an innate insecurity that is used to distract and control humanity. This insecurity is used by Satan to provoke fear in all Hearts, sabotaging our Minds by getting us to focus on self as a savior. The reality is, and Satan knows this, that focusing on self as a savior is ultimately a slow suicide.
What Happened?
The Heart of humanity left the safety and security of knowing only good. Humanity having only a knowledge of good was how our loving God created us, but we chose to venture outside of the fold into a knowledge of evil. The Heart was created to naturally focus on that which sustains it: a life-giving Source. A natural tendency that would always choose right and produce right impulses on a subconscious level. At the tree, the choice to know evil took our focus off of the Life Source and placed it on self as savior, thus bringing negative forces into our reality. A subsequent intrinsic fear was imbued with the impossible responsibility of relying on self as savior.
The Heart’s focus was transformed from looking to a loving God as the life-giving Source, and forced it to naturally focus on touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight as avenues for indicating safety and security. This shifted the power in the world government, enshrouding all life on earth with fear. Nature felt it and responded accordingly. Survival and desperation established themselves in the rhythms of this world. Fear became the primal driving force of the Heart.
In God’s mercy, the choice in the garden that sought to separate humanity from its Life Source forever was felt fully at a later moment. The separation that creation embodied at the fall was manifested completely on the Cross, where the Son of God cried out to His Father in Mark 15:34, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Forsaken. Jesus felt the Life Source removed from Him, that God had renounced and turned away from Him entirely.
Our Savior
While realizing your inherent struggles between the Heart and Mind, you can look to the risen Savior: Jesus Christ our Lord. The disconnection from the Life Source in Eden set humanity on a path of fear, insecurity, and self-reliance. Yet God, in His infinite love and mercy, did not leave us to navigate this turbulent journey alone. He devised a plan of redemption, a way to restore the broken relationship and heal the deep-seated wounds between our Hearts and Minds.
Jesus came into our world, embodying the perfect union of divinity and humanity. He experienced the full spectrum of human emotions and temptations, yet He remained without sin. By living a life of complete obedience and fully trusting in the Father, He modeled the harmonious operation of the Heart and Mind as it was intended from the beginning. His Mind was always aligned with God’s will, and His Heart was perfectly conditioned by love rather than fear.
God resolves the sin issue by offering you a new nature through Christ rather than by eradicating your ability to choose. As you change how your Mind chooses to experience life, a fundamental reconditioning of your Heart occurs. The Holy Spirit works in your Heart and Mind, reshaping your desires, aligning your subconscious impulses to seek God as you navigate this world.
The Great Controversy between the Heart and Mind diminishes as both are realigned with God’s will and purposes. Living with a focus on God will allow you to begin experiencing the peace that surpasses all understanding. God’s resolution of the sin issue is both a present reality and a future promise. You have the privilege of walking daily in communion with Him. When you experience the freedom of God’s love, you are equipped to share this hope with others who are overshadowed by fear and doubt.
Final Thoughts
With an understanding of the fall of humanity and the intricate relationship between the Heart and Mind, it becomes clear that all are invited to experience a renewal of nature. The inborn nature motivates us from a fear of insecurity and is fueled by the illusion of self-reliance. Fear often draws us away from the One who alone can satisfy our deepest needs. Yet God, in His boundless love, has never abandoned us to this weakened condition. Through Jesus Christ, we see a perfect example of how the Heart and Mind can operate in harmony under God’s design, empowering us to live beyond the grip of fear and self-preservation.
By aligning our Mind with God’s truth and allowing His Spirit to recondition our Heart, we can engage the inner conflicts and doubts that once dictated our choices with wisdom and clarity. We are liberated to live in peace, joy, and the unity of God’s purposes for us. He grows our ability to trust Him day by day, where our Hearts and Minds are continually reshaped to reflect God’s perfect love and wisdom.
When we enter into this redeemed life, we receive more than healing for ourselves. We become couriers of peace for a world still entangled in fear and striving. The peace of a redeemed life proclaims God’s ultimate truth: that in Him, we are complete, loved, and eternally secure. If what you have just read has opened a door in your understanding that you would like to explore further, you are welcome to reach out. The picture of the Heart and Mind presented here is one worth sitting with, and there is more to discover in the conversation.
