Guard Your Heart

Happy Sunday. I pray that you made it through the recent winter storm in good shape. Today we continue in our story of selected verses from Proverbs. Following the wisdom in this book will certainly help you make it through the storms of life in good shape.

Today's verse is such great teaching. Listen to this from Proverbs chapter 4 verse 23. Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.

The word heart here means more than just the pump in your chest. It means our mind, our emotions, our will, our intellect, our core. Everything we do flows from our heart. I once heard someone refer to this as our control tower.

Solomon wrote these words close to 3,000 years ago. We're told he was so very wise. Sadly, he did not follow his own teaching. Let me share with you the first four verses from 1 Kings chapter 11.

Now Solomon loved many foreign women. Besides Pharaoh's daughter, he married women from Moab, Ammon, Edom, Sidon, and from among and from among the Hittites. The Lord had clearly instructed the people of Israel, "You must not marry them because they will turn your hearts to their gods." Yet Solomon insisted on loving them anyway.

He had 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubines, and in fact, they did turn his heart away from the Lord. In Solomon's old age, they turned his heart to worship other gods instead of being completely faithful to the Lord his God. Solomon failed to guard his heart. He did not follow the words that God had given him.

It happens all the time. When our kids started dating years ago, we stressed the importance of 2 Corinthians 6:14. Do you recall what it says? It's great teaching.

There we are told, "Do not be mismatched or do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and lawlessness have in common? Or what partnership is there between light and darkness?" We've all likely seen it.

Trouble awaits if a believer marries a non-believer. Now don't get mad at me if you disagree. That's just what the book says, and it's good words to live by. Thank God both our kids married strong Christians, and their lives are much richer as a result of it.

Several years ago, I was in my office at one of the churches that I pastored, and a man came in and announced to me that he was leaving his wife and his children. He told me, and I'll never forget, he said, "David, I didn't guard my heart." Isn't that sad? He knew the teaching, and yet he ignored it.

You may ask the question, "How do I guard my heart?" Guarding our hearts means that we are intentional gatekeepers of what enters our minds and our spirits. We must be careful where we go, who we associate with, what we watch, what we listen to, what we read. We must be careful.

I've told you before that I try to be so careful with what I watch on television. If I try to watch a show or a movie and God's name is taken in vain, I find something else. It's immediately something that makes me turn it off. I don't want to be made numb to something that's so blasphemous.

The old children's song, "Be careful little eyes what you see. Be careful little ears what you hear. Be careful little feet where you go." is such great teaching for my life.

I've played the guitar for a long time now. Several decades back, I was offered a gig at a bar restaurant to play on weekends, and it was good money at the time, and I was tempted. However, God had other plans. I rejected the offer, and I went down another path.

I've often wondered what God was protecting me from. Please make sure that you are prayed up over any decisions that you make. And sometimes God will close the door to protect you and open up one to bless you. Back to the verse.

Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. If you have veered off course, let me encourage you. Earlier, I read from 1 Kings chapter 11, and I stopped at verse 4. Actually, I ended in the middle of verse 4.

Listen to those words again about the failure of Solomon. In verse 4 it said, "In Solomon's old age, they turned his heart to worship other gods instead of being completely faithful to the Lord his God." Now that's where I ended earlier. Let me Let me read this verse to you in its entirety.

About his wives, his many, many wives from other religions, it said, "In Solomon's old age, they turned his heart to worship other gods instead of being completely faithful to the Lord his God, and here's the next part, as his father David had been." Now that's fascinating to me. If you know much about the life of Solomon's father David, you've likely heard of Solomon's mother Bathsheba. They had a bad beginning.

Another story about a man who didn't guard his heart. David failed miserably. Yet in 1 Kings 11:4, we are told that David had been completely faithful to the Lord his God. Completely faithful.

Am I missing something? Did God Did God forget? Yes, he did. David wrote many beautiful Psalms.

Psalm 51 is one of his best. In it David prayed to God. I think it's verse 10. "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and a right spirit within me."

The prayer was answered. David's heart was restored. Listen to this. If you have failed, if you have not guarded your heart, please let God restore the heart that you failed to protect.

Pray with me. Lord, thank you for new beginnings. Help us to be strong and to guard our hearts, but I also pray for those who have failed that you would help them to stand strong now and have that clean new heart as you gave David. And let us protect ourselves from this very day forward.

Thank you for newness and forgiveness and love and strength in Jesus' name. Amen. God bless. Thanks for joining me today.