(Brief notes for prayer meeting 5/1/21)
Read Proverbs 4, then focus on verse 23: "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."
The whole quality and content of our lives flows from the state of our hearts. There is a very real link here to Micah 6:8 "walk humbly with your God" - the need for care and prudence. We can easily break what is around us and we can (unintentionally) do ourselves spiritual self-harm.
We are vulnerable, prone to wander, prone to needless anxieties and to sinful distractions. Our hearts can become weighed down by disappointments and frustrations - the very things that can suck the spiritual life out of us. (Parable of the Sower)
We need this warning, this exhortation.
We need to recognise the dangers we face and not assume our defences cannot be breached.
But it is more than a defensive posture we need. Guarding our hearts, in large measure, means filling them with good things, allowing them space to breathe the clear air of heaven. To taste the royal food of the Saviour's banquet. To embrace truth that shines a light on error.
And asking the Lord to guard us, to keep us in the depths of our being: "you who through faith are shielded by God's power for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Peter 1:5).
We can ask him as we pray to help us keep our hearts, to help us to embrace the wisdom that is our Lord Jesus Christ. The life we have in him is life indeed. From him flows rivers of eternal joy and goodness. Let's not be diverted from that, from him.
