That which came out of my mouth was already in me, lying hidden in my heart.
Poison of asps Romans 3:13
- It just took the pressure of stress to spew it out.
Façade and Hypocrisy works against a true relationship with God.
- Don’t fool yourselves into thinking that you can be fake towards other people but true with God.
- If so, what you do only affects the façade, not the real you. Therefore, no relationship with God.
- Faithful with little: Luke 16:10, Clean heart: Psalm 51:6.
This explains the reason some people stay away from the gathering of the believers.
- Proverbs 26:25-26 When he speaks kindly, do not believe him, For there are seven abominations in his heart; Though his hatred is covered by deceit, His wickedness will be revealed before the assembly.
The Holy Spirit will reveal the abominations stored in our hearts during our assembly or gathering of the believers and will prevent us from fooling others and us. It is upto us to submit to His revelation and be sanctified.
Our Heart Directs Our Life
The heart of the person directs his or her life, but the person is also the one directing his or her own heart.
- The ski, on a mountain slope, is like the heart
- The skis go where the skier goes, the skier goes where the skis go.
- It is the skier who puts on and takes off weight on his skis that determines the direction and speed down the slope.
- In the same manner, the person controls what goes in and out of his or her heart, which then determines the person’s activities and responses in life.
- The person goes wherever his heart goes through his life full of constant change.
Scripture teaches not only that our heart is the director of our life, but that we also direct our heart.
To put it another way, it is our responsibility to direct the director of our life. Thus we are exhorted: “Direct your heart in the way” (Prov. 23:19). “Watch over your heart with all diligence” (Prov. 4:23).
- Proverbs 23:19 Hear, my son, and be wise; And guide your heart in the way.
- Proverbs 4:23 Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.
Our oversight of our heart is seen also in the Lord’s command:
- Matthew 6:19–21“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
In order to understand Jesus’ words, note that as beings created in God’s image it is our very nature to love.
And love’s dynamic is to seek its object and cling to it with binding force.
Thus it is our very nature to continually seek out and join to ourselves what we really value or treasure.
What Jesus is telling us therefore is that the treasure we choose to love and store up will finally control us—our heart will be where our treasure is.
- Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Since our heart is our real person, God’s Word teaches that we live life from our heart.
- Everything that comprises our spring from our heart.
- In short, our heart is the director of our life.
- Proverbs 4:23 Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.
This is one of the most significant texts of Scripture for understanding life.
- In other versions of this verse the heart is said to be the place from which “everything you do flows” (NIV);
- the “source of all life” (New English Bible);
- “where life starts” (MSG).
- Literally, the Hebrew text says: “Above all guarding, keep watch over your heart. For out of it are the issues of life”.
Identifying the heart as the source of “the issues of life” is not simply saying that the heart is the fountain or primal source of life.
- It also says that the heart controls the course of life.
The same Hebrew word for “issues” is used in other places to describe the boundaries of a territory.
- It describes the point where the boundary begins and the course that the boundary follows from there
- in other words, it begins here and goes from here to there and to there and so forth.
What God tells us in Proverbs 4:23, then, is that our life not only has
- its fountain in the heart- our heart is not only the spring from which our life flows
- the direction which it takes is determined by the heart. It directs the stream of our life in all of its bends and turns (note the plural “issues”) as it continues its flow..
In sum, the heart is the spring and director of all of our living.
Do Not be Defiled
- Mark 7:15 There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man.
- Mark 7:20–23 And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”
This discussion concerned dietary matters and ritual washing, but the principle applies to all things.
- It was not certain food or eating with dirty hands or dirty utensils, according to Jesus that defiles the person.
- Only one’s personal actions can thus defile—what comes out of his or her heart.
- Nothing can simply intrude in from outside and defile us—not even what we see or hear.
- For all of these things can become lodged in the heart only through our personal response to them.
- We either reject them or welcome them as treasure in the heart.
Jesus expressed the same priority of the heart in the activities of life when he said,
- Matthew 23:26 Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.
- Luke 11:41 But rather give alms of such things as you have; then indeed all things are clean to you.
In other words, what is outside is determined by what is inside
- deep within one’s heart
The heart, therefore, has rightly been described as “the mission control center” of human life.
Our thoughts, our motives, the words that we speak, our feelings and attitudes, and all of our actions originate from our heart.
Man is led and governed ultimately from one point” – the heart.
For this reason, God calls to us
- Proverbs 23:26 My son, give me your heart, And let your eyes observe my ways.
To give our heart to God is to give him control over all of our lives.
Guard Our Heart
The Bible’s teaching that the heart is the real person—and the source and director of all personal activities—surely means that the care of our heart is to be the supreme task of our life.
The heart deserves to be guarded “more than any treasure,” for it is our treasure of greatest value—our own self.
- Mark 8:36–37 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
- What we bring into it, what we allow to slip out from it, what we expel from it
- all determine who we are,
- the direction of our life’s journey, and finally,
- our ultimate destiny.