Christian brothers and sisters. Why is it so important for us to hide God's word in our heart?

Question

Why our heart?

What is it about our hearts that is able to store up the word and hide it?

Why do you think the word " hide" is used in the bible as it concerns this verse?

Ty for your great responses in advance.

In Christ

sandy

Answer 1

Because it is generally believed that the heart is the seat  of human emotions. This is a figurative language.

Hide simply means treasure.

Answer 2

because that's where your god should rightfully belong, not in our public systems. thank you for keeping your god to yourself.. please keep it there.

Answer 3

Sandy,

To hide something is to protect it from theft. In those days, they did not have common banks like we do today. So they would hide their money deep within their houses.

Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Note that when they hid their money, it did not mean that they would never use it. It was just their way to protect it.

Answer 4

Many years ago I took my eyes off the Lord and as I looked on other's I became sketical about people's motives. Sadly I did this mostly with other Christians, and my behaviour took me further and further away from the Lord. I feel sad as I write this!

However, during five long weary years, the Holy Spirit would bring back to my memory verses of Scripture which I had learned as a child, which were many! I at first tried to surpress them and push them away from my thoughts, but gratefully, the Holy Spirit was persistant, and little by little, my stony heart softened until I came to a point in my life, where I could not help but compare my life when I walked with the Lord, to that particular time.

It was that Word which was hid in my heart which brought me back into the arms of my Lord, and I am so so grateful....for Christian parents, my Sunday School teachers who encouraged me to learn Scripture as a child. Most of all I am grateful to the One - who never changes, for His love melted my heart!

Answer 5

Well, the Psalmist said:

Psalms 119:9  How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.  10  With my whole heart I have sought You; Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!  11  Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.

But another good reason is because you don't always have your Bible with you and so when temptation comes knocking at the door you have an arsenal of Rhema Swords to fight the battle with knowledge and discernment like Jesus did.

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Ephesians 6:17  And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word (ρημα) of God;

ρημα - rhḗma;  to speak. That which is spoken, a statement, word.

(I) Particularly a word as uttered by a living voice.

Command (Mat_4:4; Luk_4:4, used metonymically meaning upon everything which God decrees, quoted from Deu_8:3, spoken in reference to the manna;

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Luke 4:1  Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,  2  being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.  

3  And the devil said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread."  4  But Jesus answered him, saying, "It is written, 'MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE, BUT BY EVERY WORD OF GOD.' "  

5  Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.  6  And the devil said to Him, "All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.  7  Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours."  

8  And Jesus answered and said to him, "Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, 'YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND HIM ONLY YOU SHALL SERVE.' "  

9  Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here.  10  For it is written: 'HE SHALL GIVE HIS ANGELS CHARGE OVER YOU, TO KEEP YOU,'  11  and, 'IN THEIR HANDS THEY SHALL BEAR YOU UP, LEST YOU DASH YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.' "  

12  And Jesus answered and said to him, "It has been said, 'YOU SHALL NOT TEMPT THE LORD YOUR GOD.' "  13  Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time.

Answer 6

The heart is where our intent begins, so if the word of God is hid there then it will shape our thoughts and intentions, cause them to be conformed to the truth.

Answer 7

Morning blessed sister,

Your question touches on an issue that so many Christians in the west are poor at - scripture memorisation. After all, how can we hide the word of God in our hearts without committing it to memory?

The reason that we must hide the word in our hearts can be seen in two statements that Jesus makes:

First, he said that it is not what enters a man that makes him unclean but from within, from the heart, that all kinds of envy, slander, malice, impurity and evil spring... The heart of a man is where evil begins...

Second, at the temptation of Jesus in the desert, the devil quoted scripture at Jesus in order to tempt him to throw himself off the cliff proving he was indeed the Son of God because angels would catch him. Knowing the fullness of scripture, Jesus was able to see through this deception and respond using scripture itself.

If we have not hidden the scriptures in our hearts, meditating on them and inwardly digesting them, allowing them to permeate every aspect of our being then when temptations come we will have no response and, as Adam and Eve in the Garden, we will fall foul of Satan's temptations and twistings of the Word. We must be careful to know what the Bible really says and not what we think it says. The Word has power but when we allow our own manipulation of that Word to occur then we open ourselves to doubt when Satan tempts us. In doubting we lose our firm footing on the rock of Christ and the foundation of his words.

So you ask, why 'hide' the scriptures, why not 'openly display them'? Schneb answered this aspect well saying how we hide things that are precious to us and where our treasure is, there our heart is too.

Finally, hiding God's word in our hearts is important for us all for we never know when we might find ourselves absent from our Bibles and the written word. In the Bible there are references to times in which the word of God is hidden from people:

“'The days are coming,’ declares the sovereign LORD, ‘when I will send a famine through the land – not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.’”

Amos 8:11–12

Sadly such situations are sometimes encountered in our own day in a very tangible way:

The Heavenly Man is an autobiography written by Brother Yun, a Chinese evangelist. At the time of writing the book it was a criminal offence to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in China. Brother Yun describes several occasions where he found himself in prison and in chains suffering for the sake of the Gospel and his only comfort was the word of God, which he had committed to his heart through study. The word of God had been taken from him, and all he had left was the word written on his heart.

If we find ourselves living in a time and place where are we privileged enough to own a Bible we mustn’t leave it to gather dust. We have a duty to study it and devote ourselves to hiding it in the deepest recesses of our hearts ― one day it may be taken from us and the study that we have done and the sections we have memorised will be all that we have.

Answer 8

Psalm 119

9 How can a young man keep his way pure?

       By living according to your word.

10 I seek you with all my heart;

       do not let me stray from your commands.

11 I have hidden your word in my heart

       that I might not sin against you.

12 Praise be to you, O LORD;

       teach me your decrees.

13 With my lips I recount

       all the laws that come from your mouth.

14 I rejoice in following your statutes

       as one rejoices in great riches.

15 I meditate on your precepts

       and consider your ways.

16 I delight in your decrees;

       I will not neglect your word.

Deuteronomy 11

8 Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, 21 so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the LORD swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.

Deuteronomy 30

11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

Luke 8

15But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.

Answer 9

I would rather Die by the sword for my faith than live a long life hiding my faith.

Jesus is my Savior, Death means eternal life with him. . .

Answer 10

you don't look like my sis

who are you????

Answer 11

HI! I think it's extremely important to hide the Word in your so that you don't sin against it like the Bible says.  The Word also says where your treasure is that's where your heart will be also.  If you treasure the Word, then you'll have a heart to WANT to keep it and abide by every word of it.  When I think about the heart I think about life.  We know that the Word is alive and if you keep it in your heart it's what keeps you alive spiritually, so to speak.  GOD IS SOOOO GOOD!

Answer 12

His word will set you free!