Above all else guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life. Proverbs4:23
Our control center (in Hebrew Culture it was the heart) is the place where life flows from. Our heart is where character, values and worship originate. God wants to be in our hearts!
The warning is clear - if we do not guard our hearts, then we could lose our focus on that which matters. We should guard our hearts against the things that would rob us of our experience of Christ in our lives. Here are a few of the enemies of the wellspring that God would plant in us:
* Busyness and Self-Importance: "I can't take a break - they _need_ me!" We become our own little gods and we let our circumstances squeeze God out of our lives.
* Addiction to Pleasure and Comfort: This is when we avoid the challenge of Jesus to take up our cross. We become resistant to the change He desires to bring in us, because we are comfortable where we are thank you very much!
* Filling our hearts with garbage: There is plenty of garbage floating around, bad morals and values are expressed in our newspapers, on our tv's, and now even in the emails we send around. We might think that the odd off-colour joke or a bit of pornography is funny, but if the saying "you are what you eat" is true of our bodies, then "You are what you think" is true of your mind. The same holds true for our speech - have you listened to yourself recently? What does what you say have to say about you?
* Bitterness and Cynicism: When these take root in us, it is hard to be the kind of people God designed us to be. Cynicism spreads like gangrene in any group of people. It takes a courageous decision to be a person of hope.
Can you think of other enemies?
Guard your heart!
It is the well-spring where God wants to give us life.
---
--------------------------
Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
