Keep Your Heart
Good Morning,
No end of heartache is caused by humanity. It may be economic, immoral, violent, or the result of a lust for power, but evil runs rampant throughout humanity.
The thought of hurting someone ought to bother us, and we should do everything in our power to keep ourselves from hurting others. There is also the simple, selfish motive to not hurt ourselves. We do not want to do anything that may harm us or our future. Proverbs talks about the “issues of life.” Issues are the outspreading, the influence, or the impact of the spreading out on the world around us.
One crucial action must be done: “keep your heart.”
Proverbs 4:23 “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
When a married person meditates on the things that their spouse does to frustrate them, they are planting seeds in their own heart that will blossom into corrupt behavior. When one begins to notice the cash flow at a place of employment and to consider what that money might do for him, he is allowing his heart to cultivate desires and ambitions that cannot be legitimately fulfilled.
Achan allowed himself to look at the riches of Jericho, and in the end, it cost him his life and the lives of his wife and children. David looked across the darkness and planted the seeds of adultery in his heart as he saw Bathsheba.
Turning away from temptation immediately is of the greatest importance. We cannot allow ourselves to entertain or enjoy the thoughts of that which is not ours. When God says not to be bitter toward my wife, then I must not even meditate for a moment on circumstances that may frustrate me and give discontentment a place to flourish.
“Keep your heart” means to intentionally love what you have: to look at your car with gratitude, to look at your house with a thankful spirit, to look at the one you married and be grateful. Consider a caged lion: if the beast is within the cage, it is beautiful and to be admired, but if the door is left open, it can destroy much.
The single person cannot afford to look at the married person with a covetous heart or wish they had a spouse – especially not that spouse. The married person cannot allow themselves to meditate, even for a moment, on another person who might be available, whether they are married or single.
Keep your heart! It is a command! That command comes with great warning. If we do not keep our hearts, the issues of our future will be miserable, frustrating, and deadly to all the things that matter to us.
As a teenager, my brother and I had a motorcycle that would occasionally have the throttle stick wide open. That motorcycle was safe and easy to control, and we might, at some point, need to open the throttle completely and accelerate up a hill or down a long straightaway. However, when that throttle would stick open without our planning on it happening, it did not matter whether we were going up or down; we were in grave danger. So it is with a heart that is allowed to run wild without control or direction.
2 Corinthians 10:5 “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;”
Compassion and tenderness flow from a carefully nurtured heart, but if that same heart is allowed to entertain godless dreams and ideas, it may bring forth a fountain flowing with hatred, murder, deceit, corruption, and evil of all kinds.
Keep your heart WITH ALL DILIGENCE.
Pastor