Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.
- (Proverbs 4:23
The book of Proverbs places a strong emphasis on the human heart. This is reflected in the fact that the word ’heart’ appears 81 times amid the 31 chapters in this book. The reason for this is revealed in the verse above, which admonishes us to guard our hearts because the issues of life spring from them. I appreciate how this reads in a more contemporary translation:
More than any other part of your body, your heart dictates what you do. For this reason, Solomon said to guard it. Guard it against what? Against its own natural tendency to move away from the standard of God’s Word.
Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that the heart is desperately wicked (literally, fraudulent) above all things. If you’re not grounded in the Word, your heart can deceive you by telling you that you’re right when you’re actually wrong.
Christians who have made poor choices with their lives’choices that were so blatantly wrong when compared to God’s Word.
’But we were in love. It felt so right inside. My heart was telling me to pick up the phone and invite her over.’ That’s what the heart will do when we aren’t on guard against its tendency to tell us that we’re right when we’re wrong.
The only way you’ll know you’re wrong is by consistently being in God’s Word and submitting to it as the standard for what’s wrong and what’s right. When you allow the Scriptures to have preeminent authority over your life, you’re also guarding your most pivotal part’your heart.
What are you to guard your heart against? How will you do this?
When has your heart told you that you were right when you were actually wrong?
Pray to the Holy Spirit, ask him to sent you His Spirit of Truth.
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