Guard Your Heart

Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life. Proverbs 4:23

I have always liked this verse. I read it for the first time as a teen. I remember it sticking in my head as I made choices about what I should and shouldn’t do, places I shouldn’t be, hanging out with friends, what I said or chose to watch. I was reading a chapter of Proverbs a day this summer, and as I read it again I start thinking about what it means to “Guard my heart.” It’s not like we can build a box or a cage to place it in so it won’t get squished (silly I know); it also doesn’t mean that we are to protect it from anything that could hurt it. The reason I know this is because we are called to be like Jesus which means we are to love, and there is no way to love others without getting your heart hurt. So what does it mean to guard your heart? I think that the Bible gives us some pretty clear instructions for how to guard our hearts. Let me remind you of a few of the instruction from Paul: “Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things” or “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” or “Don’t worry about anything; pray about everything” or “Looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” or “Hold firm to the Word of life.” I know what you are thinking–those phrases don’t say anything about guarding my heart, right? Ah! But they do. If we set our minds on Christ and follow Him, guess what? Our hearts will follow.
The best way for us to guard our hearts is for us to yield our minds to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to give us the heart of Christ.
How well have you been guarding your heart?

-Pastor Tim