FROM YOUR HEART - PART 1

TUESDAY 06 AUGUST 2024

Handling the issues of your life, which entails your desires and undertakings, your interests and daily dealings, your pursuit and pastimes, your profession and business deals, your decision making process, as well as, upholding the right or wrong counsels - comes from your heart. In life, if you must flow in the right direction, self-restraint and a close watch over the fountain or source where you derive your inspiration, plus guarding your thoughts, perceptions and imaginative curiosity which are regularly processed and stored in your heart - must be cautiously observed.

If we are to succeed by God in any aspect of life, we must keep our minds far from entertaining ignoble thoughts and refuse to function with a wayward heart. Without guarding our hearts, no progressive life is possible in the right direction, and I mean from a meaningful and purposeful standpoint. More below!

Reference: Proverbs 4:23 New International Version (NIV)

"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."

It is absolutely essential to guard the heart in the world we live. That's why the above referenced Scripture places a strong emphasis on the heart as the source of everything we do - both good or evil. To "guard" is to watch over and to keep under careful observation, in order to protect. When we keep watch over our hearts, we protect it against any evil or negative thoughts and perceptions and we monitor and filter any negative information or influence that wants to have access to it.

The success or failure of any project, plan, endeavour or expected accomplishment starts or started from the heart, and is dependent on the choices and resolution decided under the evaluation of hearty perception and agreement. An upright, enlightened, devout, and vigilant heart, based on renewed mind - gives birth to godly lifestyle, words, actions and results. On the contrary, an ungodly heart, filled with evil plans and wicked thoughts, which is also a product of unrenewed mind, is certainly far from the delightful influence of firm knowledge of God's Word and its light, and for this reason, it can produce all kinds of evil-inspired indulgence. This is the kind of heart instantiated in Jeremiah 17:9, which reads, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?" (NKJV). Therefore we must guard our hearts most carefully, with every alertness and diligence, above all other cares.

How can we guard our heart with all diligence? It is by yielding ourselves to the enduring guidance of the Holy Spirit, which is practically actualised by hosting continual prayer lifestyle, by giving the Word constant attention from auditory perspective, by cogitative Word study with ardent alacrity, and by sustainable response to the dictates of the Word; and, above all, by allowing the Spirit of God to renew our inner strength through these practices, as well as establish the Word in our spirit, thereby letting it bear fruits of righteousness through us - as we wilfully observe the office of praying in the Spirit. When you realise that spiritual enemies and ungodliness of carnally-minded mentality or temperament, including corrupting influences, which war against saved souls - are quite real and fashionably entrenched in this present world, you'll take these appropriate spiritual precautions to guard your heart.

Jesus Himself gave us the exemplary disposition of two different kinds of heart and the efficacy of their production in accordance with their significant intelligences - by saying: ''A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart" (Luke 6:45 NLT). Stay tuned for part 2. Shalom!

Scripture Reading - Isaiah 26:3; Proverbs 3:5-6; Psalm 19:14; Proverbs 23:19.

 

Exuberant Declaration:

My heart is constantly guarded by the influence of unchangeable Word of God, and for this reason, I function in accordance with the perfect will of God for my life in all my responses and responsibilities. Praise God!