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A Hearty Meal

    I have been doing a lot of thinking recently about the phrase, "guard your heart," and what all goes into it. Why does Jesus ask us to guard our heart and what does it mean to do that? What I found is that the word stresses the importance of our hearts everywhere. There are countless scriptures referencing our hearts. Our hearts are very important to Jesus.

    Proverbs 4:23 tells us to guard our hearts because our lives flow from it! Our hearts are the core of who we are. What we fill it with determines where we are going in life. If we want to be going towards Jesus, we have to be careful to feed our hearts life and goodness. But if we fail to guard ourselves against the evils of the world, we may find ourselves down a very different path.

    Jesus stresses a "pure" heart-- a heart that is filled with His purposes and not that of the world. When we accept Jesus our Spirits and hearts are reborn and new. We then have to be careful to nourish them with good food so that they will grow into His likeness and fulfill His purposes.

    If you have let your guard down and accepted fleshly things into your heart instead of the Spirit, don't worry. Jesus can renew your heart again. Ask Him to create a fresh heart in you and see if He will not do it. Don't allow your heart to be filled with sin, but we conscious to feed it with Godliness. Purify your heart and let your life on the path of righteousness.

 Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. (NIV); Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. (ESV)

Luke 6:45 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. (NIV)

Mark 7:21-23 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person. (ESV)

Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (ESV)

Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. (ESV)

Ezekiel 36:26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (ESV)

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