Guard Your Heart

“Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.”

— Proverbs 4:23

There is a large corporation whose motto is “Think.” Well we all think all of the time. God is more specific. In Philippians 8, after giving a list of good and wholesome things, He says think on these things. Don’t just think. Hitler was a man who thought, as was Stalin and Mao and Nero and Judas, but the important thing is not merely to think, but what we are to think about.

Paul says in Philippians 4:9, if we control these thoughts, if we bring every thought into obedience to Christ, then the God of peace will be with us. So the peace of God within us, the God of peace around us, and that is the kind of life that everyone of us certainly would covet. I would urge you to look at the two verses—verse 6 (don’t worry, instead pray) and verse 8 (think on these positive things)—which precede these two promises of the peace of God and endeavor to put them into application in your own life. God’s peace will be your reward.

God’s Word truly gets to the heart of the matter—out of which there proceed the issues of life. We pray we should learn to bring every thought into subjection to Christ and obedience to Him. We should pray the Lord would create new channels where positive, loving, pure, honest thoughts may run, which will result in God’s peace filling our hearts and lives and surrounding us in our homes and wherever we go.

Dear Lord, in our age of incredible moral pollution, help us to keep our lives pure. Lord, I ask that You would guard my heart and give me strength for today to feed my soul with good things, while keeping away from that which is harmful…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE BRING EVERY THOUGHT
INTO SUBJECTION TO CHRIST AND OBEDIENCE TO HIM.