The heart. My understanding of the heart has grown so much this past year, both from study and from experience.

Most often, when I’ve heard the term “guard your heart,” it is used as a more biblical sounding way of saying “Don’t put yourself in a position to be emotionally hurt.” There is a bit of truth to this as the heart encompasses the emotional dimension of man. Speaking more comprehensively, however, “guard your heart” means something a little more along the lines of “Watch what you worship.”

We need to guard our heart, not because we are so easily hurt, but because our heart is so prone to false worship. We run after idols without even realizing, and the smallest bait can lead our hearts astray. This is why the heart needs such diligent guarding….because it is so inclined towards evil, and also, the effects of a stray heart determines the whole of a man. A strayed heart manifests itself in sinful thinking, sinful desires, and sinful actions – or basically, the entire life and being of a man.

Out of the heart flow the springs of life. Everything that proceeds forth from a person and all that he represents will be led astray with the slightest nudge of a volatile heart. This is why “all diligence” is necessary in guarding the heart.

My own heart only needs the smallest nudge to lead it astray, but this past year, I felt like the Enemy laid an all-out siege against it. I was bombarded with more than I could handle.

I felt like I had been running the Christian marathon, but all of a sudden, the metaphor was switched to the battleground, and I was caught still wearing my running shorts.

I was unprepared to be shot at, I was unprepared for the bombs to be going off around me. I realized just how vulnerable my heart really is.

I’ve been walking with Christ for more than just a few years now, and yet after all this time, I still find my worship wavering. I didn’t only need heart change as a nonChristian; I need it as much as ever today, even as one who is walking with Christ. Though the redeemed have a new heart and are new creations, the radical work of change that occurs in a Christian’s heart is by no means done.

We are not done yet. We cant afford to let our guard down, and this is more than just a “I’ll keep my eye on it” kind of thing. All diligence is required. It is almost as if the writer of Proverbs 4:23 is saying “If you don’t expend all the effort you can to  watch over your heart, it will fall.”

If the man who was after God’s own heart, who loved God as much as anyone ever has can have his heart led astray, who am I to have a lax attitude towards the direction of my worship? All diligence and nothing less, because the heart encompasses all of me and nothing less.

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