Guard Your Heart
Guard Your Heart
Keep your heart with all diligence: for out of it are the issues of life. Pr. 4:23 KJV
Keep, in the Greek here, means guard or protect. To guard means: to secure against injury, loss or attack; to protect, to defend; to keep in safety.
According to this scripture we are told to guard, protect, and defend our hearts against injury, loss or attack.
Guard Your Heart Diligently
Not only are we to be guarding and protecting our hearts but we are to be doing that diligently. Diligently means: with steady application and care; not carelessly; not negligently. So we are to be guarding and protecting our hearts with steady application and care, not carelessly and not negligently—that is constantly and consistently. We should never stop doing it.
Why Guard Your Heart?
…for out of it are the issues of life. Pr. 4:23
One primary meaning of this word in the Greek for issues means “source”. Our hearts are our source of life. “Issues” in English means passage out or outlet. Our hearts are our outlet of our life. It seems our hearts are the key to our very lives. Isn’t this true in the natural as well? Without machines, when our heart stops we die.
What do we guard against?
We guard our hearts against sin in general of all types but I believe the primary thing we need to guard our hearts against is the sin of unbelief. Some theologians believe unbelief is the root of all other sins. Unbelief—not believing what God has said. Not believing God’s promises. Not believing who God says He is. Not believing who God says you are.
One Way To Guard Our Hearts
Since we think thoughts about what we believe and many people say the battle is in the mind (and I agree), we, like this soldier guard here, will take prisoners captive. In this case, we take our thoughts prisoner.
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. 2 Cor. 10:5
We take captive every one of our thoughts and check to see if it lines up with what God says in His word. If it doesn’t we cast it down–which means to demolish or destroy. If we are destroying our thoughts that don’t line up with the Word, we aren’t rolling them around in our minds, debating them, contemplating them and letting them hang around!
You’ve probably heard about watching your thoughts before, but now you have a deeper reason to do it—because it guards your heart—your very life. Guard your heart by guarding your thoughts.