Today’s Reading, Proverbs 4-6
Focal Scripture: Proverbs 4:23 “Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.”
When it comes to sports and life I have a more offensive mind. My mentality is to strike early and strike often. I always loved seeing what weaknesses could be exploited on the sports field, whether it be scheme or personnel. In life I like to push the boundaries of what is allowed. I believe having ideas can lead to even better ideas. Thinking the same way as everyone else and not trying new innovative ways is very frustrating and kills creativity. You might be thinking, “Allen, why are you giving us this story in a daily devotional.”
Well in today’s scripture the writer makes this declaration “Guard your hearts for it so the source of life.” As much as I like to be innovative and aggressive there comes a time where defense is needed. Here it is clear that we need to guard our hearts. So what are we guarding them from? We are guarding our hearts from evil speech, wandering eyes, not being wise, and even not being truth tellers. We need to protect our hearts from being infected by the world.
As believers we already know that our hearts are deceitfully wicked. We are born with sin nature. However, when we get saved we have a change of heart and a change of desire. The problem is that if we don’t guard our hearts after our conversion we can fall back into old habits. We can allow our hearts to become callous and make excuses for our sin. We can even justify bad choices by comparing ourselves to others.
This is why we must guard our hearts. To do this requires a plan to protect our hearts from what wants to destroy us and carry us away. Remember the Bible tells us that our enemy is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for people to devour. If we are not careful even though our hearts have been changed by Christ we can be weighed down by the world and our choices.
We know this to be true because of sins that we struggle with in our life. We know we need to do better and submit to Christ. We feel guilty over our actions and then commit to doing better. Then we sin again and start the vicious cycle. The problem is that we never guarded our hearts. We don’t root out the issues and sin that so easily entices us to live against our Savior.
My challenge for you today is to guard your heart with all that you have. It’s time to play defense and make a plan to protect yourself from the enemy and even yourself. Our hearts matter and even when the enemy loses us after salvation he will desire to cloud our lives with doubt and struggles. All of them begin in our heart.
Let us all learn how to submit to the Lord and learn wisdom on this topic because it will change our lives.
Tomorrow, I plan on reading Proverbs 7-9
