Keeping Your Heart...

Keep your heart with all diligence, 

For out of it spring the issues of life.—Proverbs 4:23

For out of the heart, Jesus tells us in Matthew 15, “proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man. Jeremiah the prophet tells us that our heart is desperately wicked, who can know it?  Jesus also tells us in Matthew 6 that where our treasure is...what we value...there our heart will be also. 

John MacArthur defines the heart this way....

“The “heart” commonly refers to the mind as the center of thinking and reason but also includes the emotions, the will, and thus, the whole inner being.  The heart is the depository of all wisdom and the source of whatever affects speech, sight, and conduct.”

In other words, what we allow into our heart through our senses can and will affect our actions.  Beloved, our actions WILL follow what our heart believes. 

An example from my own life.  Over the past several months, I have spent an increasing amount of time reading the news.  I did not reduce the amount of time that I spent in the Word, but, nevertheless, my mind darkened.  My outlook changed.  Why?  Because my mind was focused on the cares and concerns of this world.  As I read, I began to think more and more like a citizen of earth, rather than a citizen of heaven. Very subtly, my hope in Christ was being muted by the evil and hopelessness evident in the world around me.  My thoughts became anxious and my sleep no longer as restful.

What was the antidote? Obviously limiting my time in the news was a good place to start, but saturating myself in the word of God was what was truly needful. I noticed a difference on the very first day.  

20 My son, give attention to my words;

Incline your ear to my sayings.

21 Do not let them depart from your eyes;

Keep them in the midst of your heart;

22 For they are life to those who find them,

And health to all their flesh.—Proverbs 4:20-22

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.—Colossians 3:16

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.—Hebrews 4:12

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me, and know my anxieties;

24 And see if there is any wicked way in me,

And lead me in the way everlasting.—Psalm 139:23-24

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.—1 Corinthians 15:57