Largeness of Heart

And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore. I Kings 4:29 (KJV)

This verse says God gave Solomon largeness of heart. What is largeness of heart, and how do we get and keep it? Let’s break it down in the Hebrew.

Largeness is the Hebrew word rochab, which means breadth or width. Heart is leb, which means the center of something, it embraces the whole inner man and is the seat of knowledge, wisdom, memory, conscience, moral character and the like. Largeness of heart means the expansion of the inner man.

God enlarged Solomon’s heart, or inner man, to receive what God had for him. Solomon had asked for wisdom, and God had to enlarge him to receive it. We must have a heart to receive wisdom. First there must be a desire for wisdom, then we must ask God for it and allow Him to do His supernatural work to enlarge our inner man to receive it. Our hearts are enlarged by a. His Spirit (Zechariah 4:6), b. His Word (Psalm 119:32), and c. our obedience (Psalm 119:32).

That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; Philippians 3:10 (KJV)

We need to have a heart for God like David did, like Jesus did, and like Paul did. Their desire was to know and please God. As we do, we can keep our hearts not only enlarged but soft and tender towards the Lord. This allows us to walk in the ways of God, not to depart from Him.

My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee. Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil. Proverbs 4:20-27 (KJV) emphasis mine

As we guard our hearts, we protect them and what God has deposited there, such as wisdom, love, and so on. We must do God’s Word and be led by His Spirit to keep what God has put in our inner man. The more we pray, study and obey, God enlarges our hearts more and more (Romans 8:26, I Corinthians 2:6-16). We’ll have a heart to love and reach the whole world. Largeness of heart enables us to love God with everything in us and love our neighbor as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:36-40).

Let’s ask God to enlarge us and expand our inner man so He can do everything in us He wants to do. As we experience largeness of heart, we receive more and more of what God has to give us, and we’ll be everything He wants us to be.