Faith Bible Study Guide
Notice particularly the words, “For with the heart man believeth….” It’s with the heart that man believes. Now when God speaks of the human heart here, He is not speaking of the physical organ, that great pumping station that pumps blood throughout your body and keeps your physical body alive. He is actually speaking of the human spirit which is the very center of man’s being.
You remember in previous chapters, I talked about the spirit or the heart of man as being the real man. Man is a spirit; he has a soul; and he lives in a body.
I remember as a youngster, I heard a man speak; he called it preaching but actually he only gave an intellectual discourse because it wasn’t preaching. What he was talking about wasn’t New Testament; it wasn’t the Word of God.
In the course of his so-called sermon, he began to poke fun at those of us who believe in old-fashioned, Bible-based, heart-felt salvation. He used the term “heart” literally and said if a man had a “change of heart,” that means he would have heart trouble and he would die! This man actually said that this “change of heart” would kill a person because then his blood wouldn’t flow right! He mistakenly thought man was just mind and body. But man is more than mind and body. He is a spirit; he has a soul; and he lives in a body.
We know that man was created in the image and the likeness of God (Gen.1:26). That means man is in the same class with God. Man has to be in the same class with God, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to worship God in spirit and in truth. Jesus said, “God is a
Spirit . . .” (John 4:24). And then Jesus said, “. . . they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (v.24).
We know from our last lesson that your spirit is not your mind. Your mind is part of your soul. The soul is comprised of your mind, your will, and your emotions. Anyone, particularly Full Gospel people, ought to know what the spirit of man is, because when you speak with tongues, you speak out of your heart or out of your spirit. So to believe God with your heart means to believe God with your spirit – the real man or the inner man.