Scripture

Guard your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.

~Proverbs 4:23, LSB

Quote

The eye of God is principally fixed upon the heart.

~John Flavel

Saul had the physical statue of a king but he did not have the heart. For this reason the LORD said to Samuel {before choosing another king}, “Don’t be impressed by his appearance or his height…God does not view things the way men do. People look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” The life of Christ testifies to this truth: God’s eye is on the heart. Jesus made this one of the themes of His teaching…Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and goes into the sewer? But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false witness, slanders. These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.”

My father was a cement finisher by trade but he knew a lot about timber. We had less than two acres of timber on our place so we cut our firewood on my Grandmother’s place. She needed all the income she could get so we never fell a tree that would make lumber. Daddy would walk through the woods until he found the right tree and then he would say, “Boys, this is it. This tree has a bad heart.” I never knew him to make a mistake, not on the trees. Every time we cut one of those trees down, the heart {center} would be rotten or completely gone. How did he know which tree was bad? I am not sure of all his indicators but one was open places in the trunk, at the top or foot. Don’t kid yourself, water will cause rot to any wood if it can penetrate the outer surface.

Solomon didn’t practice what he preached, but his Proverbs still ring with truth. Your heart is the gate that protects your inner man. We must guard our hearts because the heart is the fountain of life. Happiness, joy, peace, contentment…all these things and more come from the heart. If we allow the enemy to enter by way of an unguarded heart, he can destroy all the above. He can’t steal your salvation but he can rob you of your joy and peace. Judah lost everything because they failed to guard the heart. God said through Jeremiah the prophet, O Jerusalem, cleanse your heart that you may be saved. How long will you harbor your evil thoughts?* God judged the people of Noah’s day for the same reason…Then Yahweh saw that the evil of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.* I have a fear that modern worship is man centered. I am afraid that we give little thought to the fact that God is looking at our heart. We know that others are looking at our clothes, our hair do, our facial expressions and our behavior and that is our focus. We want to impress others but we give little or no thought to the heart which is first and foremost with God.

I like history and I watched a movie the other night about Spain’s invasion of what we call the Netherlands today. This took place in the 16th century. They attacked the walled city of Harlem and they concentrated on the gate. They aimed all their cannons at the gate and with one persistent blast after another they demolished the gate of the city. Your HEART IS THE GATE and the devil is going to bombard the gate. The heart is always the heat of the battle. If he can get the heart, his victory is secure. The heart and mind are synonymous here and he will bombard your mind with dark and vile thoughts. It is an unrelentless barrage; so above all else guard your heart. Via the heart, he can seize your entire life and bring untold misery.

Footnotes: Jeremiah 4:14, Genesis 6:5

Extra

Eye surgery in Huntsville today on the left eye I think. It is the bad one. I have no idea what this involves but I assume I will be up and running by Friday.

Today is my Mother’s birthday. She was born 1915.

One day VBS was a huge success: four professions of faith. PTL

I watched about 10 minutes of news on Tuesday night. Just long enough to get incensed. All the Biden hires for security {Secret Service} have been DEI hires or affirmative action. Filling the IRS and the various other organizations with DEI hires is bad enough. Ever try to get a car title changed? Have you ever had to deal with the IRS? These agencies are littered with incompetents. People who were hired not because of their skills, but because of the color of their skin or because they were in one of the oppressed groups like gays and lesbians. Listen folks, when it gets to something involving life, you cannot appoint people because they are women or of some minority group. You hire the best you have, end of sentence. Hey, I am not opposed to hiring a woman. A Margret Thatcher I might consider but not one of these liberal flakes. Their incompetence almost cost Trump his life. Heads should be rolling. I never dreamed a more incompetent man than Jimmy Carter would be in the Whitehouse, but Joe has saved Carter from being on the bottom or top, according to how you look at it. Clinton and Obama were not incompetent, one was a hedonistic heathen and the other was a Marxist.