Watch Your Hearts: Keep Your Heart With All Diligence

We are obligated to keep our hearts above all other things. We must labor to know our own hearts – and they can be very deceptive. Further, most – if not all of us - are prone to self-delusion, Amen? The Prophet Jeremiah writes in Jeremiah 17:9-10 (NIV): The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.” I am confident King David knew this when he wrote in Psalms 139:23-24 (NIV): “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” It always behooves the saint to have God search their hearts as we are so easily duped by our own selves. Remember, out of the overflow of one’s heart the mouth speaks and the hand acts. Within our hearts lies the seat of our emotions and the motivation behind our actions. And we want clean hands and pure hearts as this pleases the Father as well as ourselves, Amen?
Every believer should desire good things to come forth from their hearts. Indeed, Jesus stated in Luke 6:45 (NIV): “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.” If we desire to seek to avoid temptation we must work on knowing these hearts of ours. We must learn our weaknesses - where corruptions are strong and grace is weak - to prevent Satan from getting a foothold and a stronghold in our lives – and we really don’t want to go there. His MO is always to seek to steal, kill and destroy whereas Jesus came to give us life and life to the full. We are never to justify our evil by winking at sin, rather we are to destroy it. Be watchful and thankful. The Holy Spirit empowers us to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord Jesus as we allow him control in our lives. When Satan finds our hearts fortified against his assaults, he flees. James tells us in James 4:7 (NIV): Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. It would do us well to be like Joseph, living our lives for an audience of One – fleeing from our circumstances and even leaving our worldly goods behind if necessary. We are to be fearful of sinning against God and allow the love of Christ to control us as the Apostle Paul did.