Proverbs 4:23, NIV
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
How well do we fair when our heart is our guide? Does our heart always lead us to the path that God desires for us to take? All of us have heard, if not said to someone phrases like, “Follow your heart” and “Just listen to your heart.” The majority of the world uses their heart as the basis for making big decisions. “I’ve gotta go where my heart is.” “He’s everything I want in a man…BUT, my heart is with my ex.” The voice of our hearts can speak so loudly at times that we assume its desires to be in line with the will of God. We think that our hearts will outline plainly what will make us the most happy, for the longest period of time, and bring about the best possible outcome in the end. Unfortunately, this is hardly ever true.
The heart is deceitful, and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). We should be less alert to the potential of others deceiving us, and more aware of the reality of our own hearts leading us astray. The heart does not inherently know and speak truth. Truth must be preached to, and sewn in the heart. Because men are wayward from birth(Psalm 58:3, Genesis 6:5), we are not born with the truth in our hearts, but everything contrary to the truth. Evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, & slander are what flows from the human heart at base(Matthew 15:19). These in no way lead us toward God and His righteousness, nor the plan He has for us. We are instructed to guard our hearts, because our hearts only produce more of, and a greater desire for what is planted there. By nature, we tend to plant only what we like, and that which caters to our ideas of comfort, fulfillment, and satisfaction. The heart becomes a wellspring, or a continuing supply of either the filth and corruption we take in, or the goodness that comes from the Word of God, which we are instructed to diligently store up in our heart(Proverbs 3:3, 7:3, Deuteronomy 11:18). The only way we can escape the base corruption in our heart is by God removing the old, and granting us a new heart that responds to divine stimuli(Ezekiel 36:26). But even in this, we must fiercely defend against all that would contaminate what God has cleansed. TV shows, music, movies, pictures, social media, bad company, and conversation can either serve to amplify the work and Word of God in us, or defile us; and assimilate us to the order of the world that God has condemned.
