Your Mind Can’t Replace Your Heart

Your Mind Can’t Replace Your Heart | Reflections

For what more has the wise man than the fool?
What does the poor man have,
Who knows how to walk before the living?
—Ecclesiastes 6:8

A wise man with the greatest education in the world has no ultimate advantage over a fool when God is absent from his life.

On the day when we all stand before God, He is not going to ask to see anyone’s diploma. He is not going to inquire about the number and source of academic degrees.

He is not going to ask about IQ, SAT or GRE scores, or bank balances. All He is going to ask about is our hearts.

The problem is that our work begins by requiring our strength. We do it during the best hours of our day, and we find that we need to be rested and at our physical best.

Then we find that our work requires our minds if we are going to do better at it. We are soon mulling over challenges and problems even when we are away from work.

We begin to come up with some solutions, and we become emotionally involved in the work before us. It has taken a piece of the heart. And finally, when we are completely sold out to the world of nine to five, we discover that our work has required our very souls.

But Jesus says the number one commandment includes loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Luke 10:27). Work, in short, becomes another idol that displaces (and displeases) God.

Forty miles south of downtown London is a tiny village named Piltdown. One day in 1908, a lawyer named Charles Dawson, a member of the prestigious British Geological Society, claimed to have discovered an ancient skull.

More bones were soon discovered, and suddenly the world had “proof” of Darwin’s theory of evolution: Piltdown Man. The scientific literature that came out about Piltdown Man was enormous, with more than five hundred doctoral dissertations written about the discovery.

School children were shown pictures of what Piltdown Man looked like and where he fit into the evolutionary chain.

Sir Arthur Keith, one of the world’s greatest anatomists, wrote more about Piltdown Man than anyone else.

His works include the widely acclaimed book The Antiquity of Man, based on the Piltdown discoveries. He had based a lifetime of work on his faith, and he was fascinated by the Piltdown development.

Sir Keith was a frail eighty-six years old when Kenneth Oakley and Joseph Weiner paid a sad visit to his home.

They were breaking the news that after a half-century of study, Piltdown Man was a hoax, nothing more than an old human skull, the jawbone of an orangutan, and a dog’s tooth.

For forty years, the brilliant scientist had trusted in a fraud.
Keith was a rationalist and a profound opponent of the Christian faith. Yet in his Autobiography he tells of attending evangelistic meetings in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, seeing students make a public profession of faith in Jesus Christ, and often feeling “on the verge of conversion.”

He rejected the gospel because he felt that the Genesis account of Creation was just a myth and that the Bible was merely a human book.

It causes profound sadness to know that this great man rejected Jesus Christ, whose resurrection validated everything he said and did, only to put his faith in what proved to be a phony fossil.

The Bible warns about those who think they are wise but are really fools (Romans 1:22). While a good education is desirable, it’s not as important as a heart that knows God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Bible says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). Your mind cannot replace your heart.

Your Mind Can’t Replace Your Heart | Reflections

For what more has the wise man than the fool?
What does the poor man have,
Who knows how to walk before the living?
—Ecclesiastes 6:8

A wise man with the greatest education in the world has no ultimate advantage over a fool when God is absent from his life.

On the day when we all stand before God, He is not going to ask to see anyone’s diploma. He is not going to inquire about the number and source of academic degrees.

He is not going to ask about IQ, SAT or GRE scores, or bank balances. All He is going to ask about is our hearts.

The problem is that our work begins by requiring our strength. We do it during the best hours of our day, and we find that we need to be rested and at our physical best.

Then we find that our work requires our minds if we are going to do better at it. We are soon mulling over challenges and problems even when we are away from work.

We begin to come up with some solutions, and we become emotionally involved in the work before us. It has taken a piece of the heart. And finally, when we are completely sold out to the world of nine to five, we discover that our work has required our very souls.

But Jesus says the number one commandment includes loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Luke 10:27). Work, in short, becomes another idol that displaces (and displeases) God.

Forty miles south of downtown London is a tiny village named Piltdown. One day in 1908, a lawyer named Charles Dawson, a member of the prestigious British Geological Society, claimed to have discovered an ancient skull.

More bones were soon discovered, and suddenly the world had “proof” of Darwin’s theory of evolution: Piltdown Man. The scientific literature that came out about Piltdown Man was enormous, with more than five hundred doctoral dissertations written about the discovery.

School children were shown pictures of what Piltdown Man looked like and where he fit into the evolutionary chain.

Sir Arthur Keith, one of the world’s greatest anatomists, wrote more about Piltdown Man than anyone else.

His works include the widely acclaimed book The Antiquity of Man, based on the Piltdown discoveries. He had based a lifetime of work on his faith, and he was fascinated by the Piltdown development.

Sir Keith was a frail eighty-six years old when Kenneth Oakley and Joseph Weiner paid a sad visit to his home.

They were breaking the news that after a half-century of study, Piltdown Man was a hoax, nothing more than an old human skull, the jawbone of an orangutan, and a dog’s tooth.

For forty years, the brilliant scientist had trusted in a fraud.
Keith was a rationalist and a profound opponent of the Christian faith. Yet in his Autobiography he tells of attending evangelistic meetings in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, seeing students make a public profession of faith in Jesus Christ, and often feeling “on the verge of conversion.”

He rejected the gospel because he felt that the Genesis account of Creation was just a myth and that the Bible was merely a human book.

It causes profound sadness to know that this great man rejected Jesus Christ, whose resurrection validated everything he said and did, only to put his faith in what proved to be a phony fossil.

The Bible warns about those who think they are wise but are really fools (Romans 1:22). While a good education is desirable, it’s not as important as a heart that knows God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Bible says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). Your mind cannot replace your heart.