Guide Your Heart

"Above all else, guard your heart." 
(Proverbs 4:23)

Having issues with doing what you desire to do in your heart as opposed to what your body is pushing and prodding you to do that is diametrically opposite to what you know is God's will for your life?

Then you need to be careful about the inputs you take in from around you, especially what you see and hear. As bad communication corrupts good character so also does ungodly inputs into a man's life lead to ungodly thoughts, utterances and actions.

Everything you do flows from what you take in. If your senses take in things that are ungodly your body will tend to want to move you towards such actions because it's perpetually at war with the Spirit of God in you.

You cannot desire that God deliver you from sexual immorality when you are watching sexually elicit clips and sexually charged movies and expect a different result from your emotions and your bodily reactions. If you do, then you are an accident waiting to happen.

You cannot eat your cake and have it when it comes to vascilating between the sometimes ungodly desires of your flesh and the good, pleasing and perfect will of God that His Spirit promotes in you.

In Proverbs 4:20-23, God admonishes us to: 
1. feed our Spirit with His Word, 
2. pay attention to what He says through His Word, 
3. not to let them out of our sight, but to keep them within our heart, that we may obey them, 
4. for they  give life to those who find them and take them to heart, and also 
5. give health to one's whole body. 

He however went on to warn that the other side of the 2 pronged approach to ensuring the obedience of our flesh to His Spirit at work in us, was to ensure that we guard our hearts, above all else, for every thought and action which are the end result of what we take in, flows from it.

In James 4:4, it is aptly written, 
"You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God." 

This is where most people are missing it. We still desire, find joy and participate from time to time, in the semi-adulterous relationship with the world whilst having a foothold in the things of God's kingdom, which should not be and cannot work.

We need to ask God for grace to hate and therefore learn to dissociate ourselves from all the ungodly practices and allure this fallen world has to offer that we may squarely face God's purposes for our lives.

So guard your heart by constantly feeding your spirit with God's Word, prayer, making the necessary daily sacrifice of consciously fleeing from imbibing ungodly information and asking God's Spirit to help you instinctively hate what He hates and like what He likes. 

Shalom