Above all else, guard your heart.

[Derek1955]

Proverbs 4:23 “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."

That is not a simple request but a command that we keep our hearts pure. Pure? In today's world? To do that we surely would have to turn off our televisions, avoid our computers, stop watching films and no longer read newspapers and magazines. But that is not what Jesus said to His followers nor to us: “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them - [all of His followers] - into the world” (John 17:18).

For as long as we’re here, living in the world, this is where Christians are meant to work and to live and to set an example to others by putting the light by which we live on a hill and not hiding it under a bushel.

Surrounded by constant temptations and pulled every which way, we are called and equipped by God through Christ and the Holy Spirit to choose all things wisely and to dedicate our lives to the glory that is God by loving God and by loving others as ourselves. If we obey those two great commandments to our utmost then, as we are promised by Paul in his letter to the Philippians 4: 7 KJV, “The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”.

 

[p_rehbein]

 

[Blik]

At the time Solomon took down what the Lord told him, he thought the heart was where thinking came from. It was hundreds of years later that the function of the brain was discovered. So what Solomon was telling us was to be careful of what we put into our minds.

This means that lots of TV shouldn't be listened to, and most books we have today shouldn't be allowed into our minds. Although we don't have conscious memory of all we have put in our minds they are there forever, once we let them in.

It also reinforces the verse in Philippians about what we should let our minds think about.

Phil. 4:8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.