Never was Solomon more correct than when he wrote,
Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life. (Proverbs 4.23)
Why is it essential to keep or guard our hearts?
In the Old Testament, the term “heart” holds profound significance. It appears 46 times in Proverbs and 858 times throughout the entire Old Testament.
A person’s actions are dictated by the inclinations of their heart because it is a fusion of intellect, emotions, and will.
The heart serves as the epicenter of planning and decision-making. It embodies trust in God and experiences a vast range of desires, from the most basic physical urges to the loftiest spiritual aspirations.
While the eyes and ears influence the heart, it is the heart that ultimately dictates what we choose to see and hear.
The heart determines whether we are receptive or deaf to God’s messages. When God touches a heart, He shapes its very essence and will.
Jesus and the Heart
Jesus was challenged to summarize the teachings of the law and the prophets. He did so by highlighting the importance of loving God with our hearts.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
“This is the greatest and first commandment” (Matthew 22.37-38)
Jesus underscores that the heart is the wellspring of a person’s actions, and it’s the inner disposition and motivations of the heart that truly matter to God.
While our heart can connect with God and love Him, it is also capable of producing the evil of our behavior.
“For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: sexual immorality, theft, murder,
“Adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, folly.
“All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7.21-23).
Since the heart can decide for God or evil, we must make a decision.
Jesus taught that there should only be one master. That one master is the Lord, who is worthy of all of our love and devotion.
“No one can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” (Matthew 6.24)
How?
How can we best guard our hearts? Bruce Waltke suggests, “Just as the Ten Commandments were housed in the Ark at the center of the Holy of Holies, the Father’s teachings should be housed right in the middle of the human heart.”
One of the ways to guard our hearts is to pay attention to the way we talk. As we speak, so we are.
Superficial habits react on our minds. Cynical chatter, grumbles, flippancy, and more harden into well-established habits of the heart.
Put away from you crooked speech,
and put devious talk far from you. (Proverbs 4.24)
Consider the Most Holy Place in the Temple. No one would dare bring something unclean or defiled into that sacred space.
Since our speech impacts the most holy place of our lives, it should be treated with the same reverence.
Our speech not only affects our hearts but so does what we see with our eyes. Solomon writes,
Let your eyes look directly forward
and your gaze be straight before you. (Proverbs 4.25)
Jesus said, “The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light” (Matthew 6:22).
Once again, consider your heart as the Holy of Holies in your being. What we look at will either build up our heart or corrupt it.
There’s an interesting relationship between the heart and the eyes. What we see affects our hearts. On the other hand, our hearts affect what we choose to see, seek, and focus on.
Solomon’s wisdom is to intentionally cultivate both. Guard our eyes from that which leads us astray and nurture our hearts to yearn for a complete love of God.
YouTube Video
Rudy Ross and I discuss this passage from Proverbs on YouTube today. It is on the Bob Spradling channel.
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