COLUMN: Sunday School teacher asks, “Where is your heart?”

Someone once told me a humorous story about a Sunday School teacher and a little boy in her class. It seems she was teaching children about asking Jesus to come into their hearts.

To help them understand the theological principle, she began by asking the youngsters, “Can anyone tell me where your heart is?” A little fellow stood up and patted the seat of his pants and said, “My heart is right here.”

His unexpected answer caused the teacher to ask him how he knew his heart was there. He replied, “When I go to my grandma’s house, she puts her arms around me and pats me back there with her hand and says, ‘Bless his little heart.’”

The Bible talks about the heart, but it’s not talking about that life-sustaining muscle. “It’s talking about our entire inner being. The heart is the seat of our emotions, the seat of decisive action, and the seat of belief (as well as doubt), the late Reverend Billy Graham once said.

Where is your heart, spiritually speaking? Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Mathew 7:21). He wanted you and me to know that what we value most reveals the truth about our hearts – be it money, prestige…you name it.

We also find other scriptures that help us examine our hearts and God’s remedies for our ills. What does a check-up tell us about our hearts, and why is that important? Because that’s how we find out the kind of person we are.

Proverbs 23:7 says as a person, “thinks in his heart, so is he.” The heart can be “deceitful and desperately wicked,” according to Jeremiah 17:9.

God provides the remedy when we pray, “Create in me a clean heart, O God” (Psalm 51:10). Jesus has promised, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 6:8).

Maybe your heart is sick because you have lost hope, as the Bible describes in Proverbs 13:12. But the remedy can be found in Proverbs 17:22 where we read that a merry heart is good medicine. And, God will supply the gladness to make our hearts merry (Psalm 4:7).

“Let not your heart be troubled…” Jesus tells us to believe in Him (John 14:1). He said He came to heal the broken-hearted.

The Apostle Paul tells us we should, “Be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32). It’s amazing to think that through Christ’s forgiveness of our sins He lives in our hearts. “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:10).

Do you want to be sure Jesus is in your heart? There’s a familiar Sunday School song whose words simplify this theological principle. You may want to prayerfully sing them or say them.

“Into my heart, into my heart, come into my heart, Lord Jesus. Come in today, come in to stay. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.”

— Jan White has compiled a collection of her columns in her book, “Everyday Faith for Daily Life.”