Keep Your HEART
“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” - Proverbs 4:23
What have you been thinking about today? What has dominated your thoughts most of the day? To what have you given all of your mental energy to? Have you had a hard time watching over your thought life recently?
Scripture tells us to keep our hearts with all vigilance, or in other words, to diligently watch over our hearts. Therefore, we must be careful not to take our eyes off of our hearts.
“To neglect the heart is to ignore the most vital place. To guard the heart is the one great business of a Christian life. It is where you keep your treasure, and the treasury must be protected…the heart is your last wall of defense in a fortress that is under perpetual attack.” - A. Craig Toxel
Keep your Heart
“Heart” means the inner man, mind, will and understanding.
Therefore, guarding our hearts, also means guarding our minds (or in other words our thoughts). For our thoughts are part of the heart.
“But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.” - Matthew 15:18
Everything we do and say comes from the heart.
“Keep” means to “guard,” “watch over,” or “pay careful attention to.”
Keeping your heart has two aspects to it, preserving and protecting.
“Keeping means preserving and protecting, looking inward and outward, ensuring soundness and safety.” - A. Craig Troxel
To preserve our hearts, we must constantly ask God to help us examine our hearts, to keep us far from temptation and to help us set our thoughts and desires/affections on Him. Saturating our minds in the truth of Scripture helps us to preserve our hearts (Psalm 139:23-24; Psalm 1:2-3).
To protect our hearts we must be diligent in prayer and alert to what we are allowing into our minds (Colossians 4:2; 1 Peter 5:8-9). Guarding what we take in with our eyes and ears helps protect our hearts.
Seek the Lord
The ultimate way to keep our hearts with all vigilance is to seek the Lord with our whole inner being (our mind, will and desires). The more we seek the Lord with all that we have and all that we are, the more we will desire the Lord.
“Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” - Colossians 3:1
To keep our hearts with all vigilance it is important to daily remind ourselves of the gospel: that we are all sinners who fall short of the glory of God and are in desperate need of Jesus (Romans 3:23).
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised up with Him, and seated with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” - Ephesians 2:4-5
To Live
Answer the following Questions: 1) What has dominated my thoughts most of today? 2) What did I allow in my mind today? 3) What truth from Scripture can I remind myself of?
Pray and ask God to help you examine your heart, to keep you far from temptation and to help you set your thoughts and affection on Him.
Memorize Proverbs 4:23 and remind yourself of this verse daily for the next week
For further study: With all Your Heart: Orienting Your Mind, Desires, and Will Toward Christ by A. Craig Troxel
To Listen
*this article was originally posted on Kindred Soul Counseling