We’re told in Proverbs 4:23 to ‘guard our heart’ because from it flows the wellspring of life. We’re told elsewhere in Proverbs that life and death are in the power of the tongue and in the New Testament in Matthew 12:34, we’re told that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. By connection we can see then that the heart holds the trigger for the power of life and death because the mouth and thereby, the tongue, is supplied by what is in the heart. Hence, the warning to guard it. Our heart is the source of our mental musings and our verbal outpouring. When we don’t guard it, the chances of that which is death and evil coming out of us increases on a scale we can’t imagine.
In this day and age, we’re a flick of our finger away from images we shouldn’t see and things we shouldn’t hear and we deceive ourselves if we think that when we put something like that into us willingly, that the result will not be a root established in our heart. Have you ever started doing something you know you shouldn’t be, no matter what it is, and then find yourself constantly thinking about it for the rest of the day or week? What happens if you continue to expose yourself to that thing? The urge to dwell on it, think about it, expose yourself to it increases. This is what today’s society is all about.
For years I’ve heard people make excuses about questionable and downright filthy music by saying ‘oh, I’m not listening to the words, I like the beat/rhythm/sound. That’s well and good, I like all of those things too, but to think that the words are not getting into you and down into your heart is a foolish view. How do I know that? Because when music starts from songs I haven’t heard in years, the words immediately come to mind. Why? Because it is in my heart. Once it is in our heart, we can draw on it in many different circumstances. Do we really think as intelligent people that the staggeringly fast rise of rap music and culture has nothing to do with the likewise rapid rise in mind set and behavior espoused in those songs? Can we not see the obvious connect? Or perhaps the rise in pervasive sexualization of everything from music videos, to commercials to network TV and more. Not to mention the availability of pornography a few clicks or flicks from anywhere. Do we not see that degradation of our relationships and families at the most basic level? We’re at the point where young people would rather watch sex on their phone or computer rather than develop relationships and pursue marriage for the actual act.
What is the result? The fabric of humanity slowly unraveling as we refuse to guard our hearts and pursue righteousness and please the Father. Our heart is our most precious commodity on this planet as it is the seat of what drives us. If we cede control of it, we turn our lives over to the tides of society and the world at large, which frankly, are quite disgusting. We must be diligent and unyielding in the protection of our heart. Let the Word of God reign richly on the inside of us, and then life will indeed flow out of us.
