WHAT HAS YOUR HEART?
Key Text: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23
Your heart is not just the place where you feel emotions; biblically, it is the centre of your desires, decisions, motives, and inner life. What occupies your heart eventually influences the direction of your life. Jesus said that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, meaning that sooner or later, what is inside will find a way to come outside. Sometimes, we discover what is really in our hearts when pressure comes because pressure has a funny way of removing the spiritual makeup we carefully applied before leaving the house.
This is why Scripture tells us to guard our hearts. You cannot allow every thought, desire, offence, ambition, opinion, and influence to enter your heart and then expect your life to remain peaceful and spiritually healthy. If you keep feeding your heart with comparison, it will produce dissatisfaction; feed it with bitterness, and it will produce resentment; feed it with God’s Word, and it will gradually produce faith, wisdom, peace, and godly desires. Whatever you repeatedly expose yourself to eventually starts becoming normal to you.
Consider what happens with your phone. If you keep downloading unnecessary things, eventually the storage becomes full and the phone begins complaining that it has no space. The same thing can happen spiritually. A heart filled with worry, envy, anger, lust, comparison, and the desire to impress people may have very little room left for God’s voice. Therefore, part of checking your heart is asking, “What am I allowing to occupy this space?” You cannot control everything that happens around you, but you can become intentional about what you allow to settle inside you.
Prayer and Confession
Father, help me to guard my heart carefully. Show me every thought, desire, attitude, and influence that is taking me away from Your will. Give me grace to reject what does not glorify You and to fill my heart continually with Your Word, Your love, and Your truth. Let my heart become a healthy environment for faith, wisdom, peace, and obedience. I declare that my heart belongs to You, and what flows from me will bring glory to You. Amen.
Reflection
What has been occupying your thoughts most frequently recently? What kind of content, conversations, or relationships are influencing your heart? What is one unhealthy thing you need to reduce and one godly thing you need to increase?
Further Reading
Luke 6:45; Psalm 119:11; Philippians 4:8; Mark 7:20-23; Proverbs 23:7
