Guard Your Heart
We spoke yesterday about listening to the right things, turning our hear to God's Word. And in verse 23 of Proverbs 4 Solomon says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” And I guess it follows on from the whole listening thing - what you listen to and what you watch and what you let in affects your heart.
And so Solomon says, “Guard your heart.” Guard it! Do you have a guard at your heart, standing watch so that only those things of God can be let in? Many people have a guard at their heart and they keep God out. They keep Jesus out. That guard at their heart stops anything from coming in because that's a risk to let somebody into your heart.
Guarding Your Heart: Wisdom from Solomon and Susanna Wesley
But many people don't guard their hearts from the ways of the world and the thoughts and the customs and the ideas of the culture around us. And so we will be careful not to let down our guard for other people to come in and for God to have his way. But we will drink in the words of our favorite entertainment and our favorite music and all of that sort of thing.
Guard your heart, Solomon says. Not just from dangerous people, but from dangerous ideas, dangerous thoughts; from anything that can pull you away from God.
Susanna Wesley, the mother of John and Charles Wesley, who did such great work in the 1700s, once said this in a letter to her 22 year old son, John Wesley: “Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things (your love or your desire for spiritual things), in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind - that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.”
Nurturing a Heart Aflame with Love for God
She was saying, guard your heart from anything that takes away your desire and your deep love for God. Guard your heart from anything that numbs the vital love that you have for God.
And so, my friends, guard your heart from anything - people, situations, media, actions - that will numb you to God and cause you to love him less intensely. Let your heart instead be a fount where the Holy Spirit lives, giving you life and joy and peace and inspiring you to go to work for God.
