We keep our hearts by guarding them. This daily devotional looks at what that means and how do we do that.
Nuggets
We must make a conscious decision to guard our hearts.
As all things spring from the heart, we must guard it to make sure it is in the right condition.
Devotions in the Keeping Our Hearts series
I didn’t get nearly as far on this as I wanted to get. What I am going to do is end this early and pick it back up in the next devotion.
In the last devotion, we determined that keeping our hearts meant we seek God. John went on to tell us that we also have to guard our hearts. Let’s look what that entails.
Let's Put It into Context #1
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
Guard Your Heart
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Prov. 4: 23 ESV)
We must make a conscious decision to guard our hearts.
When we looked at Charnock’s sermon, we were discussing the governance of our thoughts. The thought process is equated to meditation.
Bottom line, we have to guard our hearts. Yes, we have to guard them from Satan’s temptations.
It is easy for our hearts to go places we really don’t want them to go. “Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways’” (Heb. 3: 10 ESV).
How do we go astray? Satan tempts us using our thoughts and dispositions to try to separate us from God.
Oh, yes. Our thoughts and desires can lead our lives and conversations away from God.
Seed nailed it when he said that if we’re awake, we are thinking. Plus, we all know those who have been accused of having an overactive imagination.
Resource
That is why we need to guard our hearts, minds, thought, and lives.
We are all going to be tempted. The deciding factor is whether we allow that temptation to lead us into sin. We don’t want to do that.
Seed reminded us that we can’t prevent distractions, even when we are engaged in religious activities. (Have you ever been praying and had your mind start multitasking? Really, squirreling?)
What we do have to prevent is damage to our hearts. This damage is caused by sin.
Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
Glossary
Our Hearts the Fountain
“… for everything you do flows from it” (Prov. 4: 23 ESV)
As all things spring from the heart, we must guard it to make sure it is in the right condition.
It is important that our hearts be right. Davidson wrote, “For, other things being equal, a man’s force in the world is just in proportion to the fulness of his heart.”
Resource
Our hearts must also be pure.
A lot of the sermons talked about diligently keeping our hearts. Diligence is a consistent, persistent effort through repentance to obey God’s laws and commandments.
A consistent, persistent effort means we know the status of our hearts. We aren’t leaving it to chance.
We intimately know the condition of our hearts. Barrow called it study. In the past, we’ve called it evaluating.
It is taking the time and effort to keep our hearts focused on God. That will take inward faith, not just outward actions.
That is counter to what the worldview has to say. They focus on outward so that they do not have to acknowledge God.
Instead, we have to know God, and we have to know ourselves.
Burns noted that we have to guard our hearts by being watchful. Watchfulness is a continual conscious examination of ourselves and all events so that we may follow God in all things.
Resource
Glossary
When I think of guarding and being watchful, I think of sentries. Their job is to watch everything so that they can protect what they are guarding.
Their lack of confidence makes them get negligent in their duties. Once they get a what-am-I-doing-this-for attitude, the enemy is bound to breech their defenses.
What they are guarding is lost.
The guarding of our hearts has to happen 24/7/365. We can’t grow slack. If we do, Satan will pounce.
Making the Connections
God’s Word gives us life. It bring us joy in this life. It bring us eternal life in the next.
Why is the status of our hearts so important? Blair reminded us that our character is determined in our hearts. Upon salvation, it is our hearts that are regenerated.
Resource
Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal requickening in us that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
How Do We Apply This?
- Don’t waste our time on mindless amusement.
- Watch what books we read.
- Seek God
- Seek God’s peace.
- Evaluate the status of our hearts.
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
Resource
Father God. It is important that we guard our hearts. We have to keep Satan out of them. More importantly, we have to invite You in. Help us to keep our hearts so that our character becomes more and more like Yours. Amen.
What do you think?
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