We must Deal with our Heart in the Lord’s Light for Christ to Grow in us unto Maturity

As believers in Christ, we must deal with our heart in the light of the Lord’s presence so that the divine seed of life may grow in us unto maturity, for our heart – our acting agent, our chief representative – is the switch of life, the entrance and exit of life in and our of our being. Amen!

This week in our morning revival we come to the topic of, Dealing with Our Heart for the Growth of the Divine Seed of Life within Us unto Our Maturity in Life for God’s Building in Life.

We want to see that, in order for the divine seed to grow in us properly within us unto our maturity in life for God’s building in life, we need to deal with our heart.

The matter of dealing with our heart is a great subject in the Bible, for there are at least one hundred verses in the New Testament alone concerning the heart.

Humanly speaking, our human heart is very important to our growth in life, our proper functioning, and our daily living.

Spiritually speaking, it is very similar, for our psychological heart is very important for our growth in the divine life.

We need to receive the Lord’s light concerning what our heart is and how we must deal with our heart in order that the divine seed of God may grow in us in a proper way unto maturity for God’s building in life.

The condition of our heart is important, for it affects our growth in life and our being built up together in life in the Body of Christ.

The central work of God in this age is that God may grow in us so that He may be expressed through us. Each one of us as believers in Christ has the divine life and this life wants to grow unto maturity.

We can attain maturity in this age; we don’t have to wait for the next age to attain maturity in life.

We need to see what are the obstacles to the growth in life and deal with anything that hinders the growth in life; this means that we must deal with our heart in the light of the Lord’s presence again and again.

May we not think that maturity is something unattainable to us; may we realize that the Lord wants us to attain maturity in our lifetime today.

Just as Paul was ambitious to please the Lord, we all need to set our heart and mind to strive and struggle to reach maturity in the divine life in this age.

When we all arrive at maturity, the Body of Christ is built up, the one new man comes into being, and the bride of Christ is prepared.

May we cooperate with the Lord and be one with Him so that we give Him the freedom to do His central work within us.

May our entire being be fully open to Him so that He may do in us what He needs to do, and may we be those who deal with our heart in the Lord’s light for the growth of God in us.

We must Deal with our Heart in the Lord’s Light for Christ to Grow in us unto Maturity

We need to have the Lord’s light shining upon us to show us how much we must deal with our heart in the light of the Lord’s presence so that Christ may grow in us.

The divine seed has been implanted in us, and it needs to grow; the divine seed came into the soil of our heart and it needs to grow within us unto our maturity in life.

What is the heart according to the Bible and in our experience?

Our heart is a composition of our mind, our emotions, and our will (the three parts of our soul) together with our conscience, a part of our spirit.

Our soul is our personality, our self, the base of all psychological matters.

We are living souls (see Exo. 1:5); our soul is our very person.

We human beings have an outward organ – our human body to contact the physical world, the visible world.

We also have an inward organ, our spirit, to contact God and the spiritual realm.

The soul is in the middle, and our heart is our person in action. When we act, we act by our heart.

Our heart is a composite, a conglomerate, of our soul plus our conscience; our heart is our chief representative, our acting agent.

When we make decisions, we do so by using our heart, and when we think, we use our heart.

Our heart thinks, makes decisions, has desires, wills, and is sensitive to the Lord’s shining.

Our heart is a composition of all the parts of our soul—the mind, the emotion, and the will (Matt. 9:4; Heb. 4:12; Acts 11:23; John 14:1; 16:22)—plus one part of our spirit—the conscience (Heb. 10:22; 1 John 3:20).

For Christ to grow in us, we must deal with our heart in the Lord’s light. To deal with our heart is to deal with our mind, emotion, will, and conscience.

We may say that we don’t want to deal with our heart in this age, because there are a lot of dealings, and there are so many problems; however, if we don’t deal with our heart in this age, we will have one thousand years in the next age to deal with it. Oh, Lord.

May we cooperate with the Lord today to deal with our heart in the Lord’s light in this age!

Why is our heart so important?

We have emphasized again and again that our spirit is the most important part of our being, for without the exercise of our spirit, we cannot contact God.

But why do we say that our heart is important? It is because, unless our heart is active and proper, the exercise of our spirit doesn’t work.

If our heart is indifferent, our spirit is imprisoned within us and is unable to show forth its capability. Wow!

On one hand, we need to be poor in spirit (Matt. 5:3) and on the other, we need to be pure in heart (v. 8) so that we may see God.

We think that it is our spirit who takes the lead, so the spirit is active, and everything works.

But if our heart is not active, our spirit is imprisoned within us.

Many times we can testify that we wanted to exercise our spirit, for our spirit was ready to flow out, but our heart had problems, offenses, sins, and many issues that are not proper, so we cannot release our spirit.

Many times we encourage one another to turn to our spirit, and this is good; however, unless our heart is turned to the Lord and is proper, the exercise of our spirit does not work.

Unless our heart turns to the Lord, nothing happens.

We may be in the meetings of the church and all the saints are enjoying the Lord, but our heart may not be there, for it may wander around, or it may have a pile of offenses that blocks us from seeing the Lord.

Our spirit is living, but our heart may be indifferent; our spirit is powerful, for the law of the Spirit of life operates in our mingled spirit, but unless our heart is dealt with and is proper, the spirit cannot flow forth.

May we learn to turn to our spirit and even more, turn our heart to the Lord.

We need to switch on both our spirit and our heart.

When we tell our wife that we love her, it is our heart that loves her.

When we dislike something or someone, it is our heart that dislikes that.

When we enjoy a particular activity or sport, it is our heart that loves that activity or sport.

Our heart is very important; if our heart is not properly exercised and dealt with, our spirit is actually jailed or imprisoned by our heart.

Our spirit can do a lot, but it is crippled and hindered by lack of heart.

May we see the need to deal with our heart in the Lord’s light so that His life in us may grow and we may arrive to maturity.

Lord Jesus, we need You. Touch us regarding our need to deal with our heart in the Lord’s light. Show us how much we need to deal with our heart with all its issues and problems so that we may grow in the divine life unto the building up of the church. Oh Lord Jesus, we want to grow in life unto maturity so that You may gain Your building, the church as the Body of Christ. Visit us again and again. Shine on us. Expose our heart and show us how to deal with every part of our heart. Oh Lord Jesus, we love You! We open to You! We turn our heart to You. We want to deal with our heart in the Lord’s light so that we may grow in life unto maturity! We want to deal with our mind, emotions, will, and conscience so that there will be the growth of the divine seed in us unto maturity for the building of God in life! May our spirit be no longer imprisoned in our heart. May our heart be turned to You so that we may see You face to face! Amen, Lord, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God!

We need to Guard our Heart, our Acting Agent, for from it are the Issues of Life

Just as the soul is the person himself, so the heart is the person in action; our heart is our acting agent, our acting commissioner, for our entire being.

We may sometimes do something because we have to, but we have no heart to do it; this shows that our whole being is not into that, for our heart is not there.

Our soul is our person, but when the soul is expressed and acts, that is our heart, for our heart is our acting agent, our person in action.

When we do something we like, our heart is engaged and involved.

If our heart is not working well in the physical realm, we have many problems.

If our psychological heart is not working way, we have many problems spiritually, for there’s no issue of life.

When our heart is active, loving the Lord and being positive toward Him, our spirit follows.

Our heart is the acting commissioner of our entire being; our heart directs our being, for everything related to us is directed by our heart.

Our whole life, our whole being, and our marriage life and family life – everything is directed by our heart.

The activities and movements of our physical body depend on our physical heart; in like manner, our daily living, the way we act and behave, depends on what kind of psychological heart we have.

If we allow the Lord’s light to shine on us and on the condition and issues of our heart, we will see that most of the things coming out of our heart are not good.

The Bible says that our heart is incurably wicked, and no man can know it (Jer. 17:9).

The fallen human heart is not good; it is wicked and evil, and the thoughts of our fallen heart are always toward evil. Oh Lord!

Now that we are regenerated by the Lord, we must deal with our heart in the Lord’s light so that we may have a good heart toward the Lord.

If our heart is wrong, no matter what we try to do, it doesn’t work.

The Lord in His salvation gives us a change in our heart; He takes the heart of stone out of us and gives us a heart of flesh.

He basically gives us a heart transplant; He puts in us a new heart (Ezek. 36:26).

This, however, is not something done once and for all but rather, we need to continue to cooperate with the Lord.

We need to do a lot of “rehab”, to make sure the new heart is working properly.

Otherwise, the old heart will take over again.

We must deal with our heart in the Lord’s light so that we may grow in life unto maturity.

The heart is the entrance and exit of life, the “switch” of life; if our heart is not right, the divine life in our spirit is hindered (Prov. 4:23; Matt. 12:33-37; cf. Ezek. 36:26-27).

If our heart is not right, the law of life cannot work freely and without obstruction to reach every part of our being.

Even though the divine life in our spirit has a great power, this great power is controlled by our small heart.

Just as the wall switch controls the great power of electricity, directing its flow to the lights and other electrical devices, so our small heart releases or hinders the flow of life in and out of our being. Oh, Lord Jesus!

The fourfold power that could regenerate us, resurrect us, and even cause us to be ascended and seated in the heavenlies, the power of God that can save us from sin, the world, the self, the natural man, and the flesh, is controlled by our heart.

Our little heart is the control switch to the issues of life, to the coming in and flowing out of life; we need to keep our heart with all diligence, for from it are the issues of life.

The fact that from the heart are the issues of life involves that all the issues of our human life are the issues of our heart.

We should not blame anyone nor should we put the blame on the environment; we are where we are and what we are because of our heart.

All that is our life today is the result of the work of our heart.

The decisions we made throughout the years, our following our desires and lusts, and our thinking have led us to where we are now; it’s all an issue of the heart.

We store things up in our heart, and out of the abundance of our heart, our mouth speaks.

From the good treasure of our heart we speak good things, both new and old; however, if our heart stores evil things, evil will come forth.

Where our treasure is, that’s where our heart is. If our treasure is in the heavens, our heart is in the heavens.

Our little heart dictates our whole life, including how we are in our Christian life.

And what determines what our heart is, loves, and thinks, is what we take into us through our ears, eyes, and mind.

May we guard our heart with all vigilance, for from it are the issues of life.

May we be careful what we watch, what we listen to, and what we allow into our thinking, our desires, our loves, and our decisions.

May we learn to deal with our heart in the Lord’s light so that our heart may be proper and good for the divine life to grow in us.

Lord Jesus, we want to guard our heart with all vigilance, for from it are the issues of life! Amen, Lord Jesus, we open our heart to You. Thank You for giving us a new heart to love You and care for You. We want to deal with our heart in the Lord’s light so that our heart may be turned to You and love You all the time. We come to You, dear Lord, concerning the things we watch, we listen to, and we think and consider. May we accumulate a good treasure in our heart. May we allow the divine life to flow into all the parts of our heart so that our heart may be a good heart, a heart that loves the Lord. Oh Lord Jesus, may the law of life work freely in us and operate in our being to dispense the riches of Christ into all the parts of our inner being. We turn our heart to You right now. Keep our heart turned to You. Keep our heart soft and open toward You. Lord Jesus, we love You!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Minoru Chen in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of 1 Thessalonians, second edition, pp. 181-183, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Enjoyment of Christ and our Growth in Life unto Maturity (2023 Thanksgiving Blending Conference), week 3, entitled, Dealing with Our Heart for the Growth of the Divine Seed of Life within Us unto Our Maturity in Life for God’s Building in Life.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – Christ as the seed of life sown into us to grow within us for God’s building, article by Ed Marks in Affirmation and Critique.
  – Pure in heart, a portion from, The Kingdom, Chapter 6, by Witness Lee.
  – Knowing God’s Will, article via, Living to Him.
  – Having a proper heart, a portion from, Practical Lessons on the Experience of Life, Chapter 9, by Witness Lee.
  – What Is the Heart according to the Bible? Article via, Bibles for America blog.
  – The prayer and the subjective experience of Christ that we must have for God’s building, article by Ed Marks in, Affirmation and Critique.
  – What is Your Heart According to the Bible and How Can You Exercise It? More at, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – Forgiveness and the Building Up of the Body of Christ, article via, Shepherding Words.
  – Being No Longer Babyish but Fully Growing Up into the Head, video sharing by Witness Lee via, Youtube.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – In dealings with the Lord as life / We need a proper heart, / That of His riches, in His grace, / We fully may take part. / We need a heart in all things pure, / With mind both sound and clear, / To understand His mind and heart / In trembling and in fear. (Hymns #744 stanzas 1-2)
  – Dig away, dig away, dig away, / All my vain imaginations dig away! / Dig away, dig away, dig away, / All my vain imaginations dig away! / All my dreams have to go / That His life may flow… Hallelujah! / Dig away, dig away, dig away, / All my vain imaginations dig away! (Hymns #1214 stanza 2 and chorus)
  – God created us His vessels / His expression to achieve; / Thus He made a heart to love Him / And a spirit to receive. / With our heart we have to love Him, / With our spirit Him possess / As our life, of Him partaking, / That Himself we may express. (Hymns #743 stanzas 1-2)