Watch Over Your Heart Pt.2

-The Manner and the Reason-

Proverbs 4:23 Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.

In the first article of this two-part blog series centered upon Proverbs 4:23 and the theme of watching over our hearts, we looked at what the Bible means when it uses the terminology of the heart and the command for every believer to keep watch over their hearts. Considering what we saw in the first article, it’s clear that keeping our hearts in a healthy spiritual frame before God is utterly important. And this is emphasized clearly not only in the command but also in the role the heart plays in the believer’s life.

In this article, we will continue to see the importance of keeping watch over our hearts by looking at how we are to watch our hearts and why we are to keep watch over our hearts.

The Manner In Which We Are To Watch Over Our Hearts

The text says that the way we are to watch our hearts is “with all diligence.” Now what’s interesting about the word diligence is that it can also be translated into the word guard, confinement, custody, and prison. These words provide a striking reality for how we are to guard our hearts. We are to guard them like a prison guard guards prisoners in confinement or custody. And the reason for this is simple!

Our hearts are immensely vulnerable to all sorts of evils.

Failure to keep watch over your heart opens the doors to all types of sin in our lives. It opens the door to anger, bitterness, drunkenness, envy, gossip, lust, pride, sloth, and much more. And we find ample proof of the vulnerableness of our hearts all through the Scriptures, from Adam and Eve to Abraham, Noah, David, Peter, and even Solomon himself, who is writing these words. Solomon was the wisest man ever to live (1 Kings 4:29-31), but even his unsurpassed wisdom did not keep Him from all idolatry (1 Kings 11:8-10) and all sorts of grievous immorality (1 Kings 11:3). Solomon himself, the writer of this proverb, proves that if we fail to guard our hearts diligently, we open ourselves to all types of ruin.

The best men and women are men and women at best.

There are so many things that we choose to guard with great intentionality. For example, we guard our money. We put it into banks, and we diversify our accounts to protect it. We guard our possessions, whether a home, a car, an appliance, or some other gadget, through alarms or insurance plans. We seek to guard our families against the hurts and pains of the world. Now, if we guard these things with great care, how much more should we guard our hearts in light of what God’s Word says regarding our hearts? All it takes is a little bit of time as a Christian to learn how vulnerable your heart is. Thus, diligence is necessary.

Thus far, we’ve seen the command (previous article) and how we are to watch over our hearts. Lastly, I’d like us to look at the reason underneath it.

The Reason We Are To Watch Over Our Hearts

Now we’ve already been inching toward why we are to keep watch over our hearts in these articles. But it’s in the last phrase of Proverbs 4:23 that Solomon makes it abundantly clear. The phrase “the springs of” speaks to the starting point of something. The wellspring of something. The source of something. The fountainhead of something. And in this case, it is the source of your life. That is your conduct, the manner, the direction of your life. All this flows from your heart Solomon says.

There is an excellent illustration that the late preacher Peter Marshall used to tell that vividly illustrates how the wellspring of something gravely affects what it produces:

A quiet forest dweller who lived high above an Austrian village along the eastern slopes of the Alps.

The old gentleman had been hired many years earlier by a young town council to clear away the debris from the pools of water that fed the lovely spring flowing through their town. With faithful, silent regularity he patrolled the hills, removed the leaves and branches, and wiped away the silt from the fresh flow of water. By and by, the village became a popular attraction for vacationers. Graceful swans floated along the crystal clear spring, farmlands were naturally irrigated, and the view from restaurants was picturesque.

Years passed. One evening the town council met for its semiannual meeting. As they reviewed the budget, one man's eye caught the salary figure being paid the obscure keeper of the spring. Said the keeper of the purse, "Who is the old man? Why do we keep him on year after year? For all, we know he is doing us no good. He isn't necessary any longer!" By a unanimous vote, they dispensed with the old man's services.

For several weeks nothing changed. By early autumn the trees began to shed their leaves. Small branches snapped off and fell into the pools, hindering the rushing flow of water. One afternoon someone noticed a slight yellowish-brown tint in the spring. A couple of days later the water was much darker. Within another week, a slimy film covered sections of the water along the banks, and a foul odor was detected. The mill wheels moved slower, some finally ground to a halt. Swans left as did the tourists. Clammy fingers of disease and sickness reached deeply into the village.

Embarrassed, the council called a special meeting. Realizing their gross error in judgment, they hired back the old keeper of the spring . . . and within a few weeks, the river began to clear up.

What used to be freshwater quickly turned into spoiled and diseased water. And the reason for the change in the quality of the water is that the source was affected. Thus the water that flowed from it was also.

Our hearts are the source of our conduct in life. Jesus made this abundantly clear when He said, “That which comes out of the person, that is what defiles the person. For from within, out of the hearts of people, come the evil thoughts, acts of sexual immorality, thefts, murders, acts of adultery, deeds of greed, wickedness, deceit, indecent behavior, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile the person” (Mark 7:21-23).

You see, this truth here obliterates the popular thinking of our day that says we are the way we are because of what others have done to us. And it reminds us that we are who we are because of the condition of our hearts.

Knowing this, as believers who have been given new hearts through the regenerating work of God (Ezekiel 36; John 3), it is our responsibility to keep our hearts in a healthy frame before God so that we can remain useful to God. This means that if you want to be a husband, wife, mom, father, boss, employee, layman, evangelist, deacon, or elder, that is God-honoring. Then you need a healthy heart. If you are going to be a person who lives a life that honors the Lord. Then you must be a person who prioritizes keeping your heart in a healthy condition before God. In light of what we’ve discovered in this crucial passage.

May we be people who seriously keep watch over our hearts.