Guard What Captures Your Heart (Proverbs 4:23)

by Pastor David Holdaway

Keep your heart with all diligence,
For out of it spring the issues of life
(Proverbs 4:23, KJV)

• If our heart is not right, everything around us will not be right
• Man looks at the outward but God looks at the heart
• In a church, there were 100 men with long hair who got saved. One day, someone told the pastor that the men with long hair should cut it short. The pastor decided not to command the men to cut their hair. Instead, he told the 100 men to ask God to tell them if they should cut their long hair. When the pastor checked, 60 (60%) decided to cut their long hair while 40 (40%) decided not to. When the pastor asked the 60 men why they kept long hair, they told him that they kept long hair to protest against authority, as a symbol of their rebellion and now they felt God telling them that they should cut it off. When the pastor asked the 40men why they kept long hair, they said "because they liked long hair". The issue was therefore not men keeping their hair long. But the issue was what it represents.
• Ultimately what decides the choices we makes is what holds out heart.
• Let's say you are 40,000 feet in the air in an aeroplane. You see a door with the words "Do not open". Let's say you decide to open the door and jump from the door. Then you're falling down. But you say to yourself, that it's not your fault that you are falling because it is due to a greater law which is the law of gravity. However, opening the door was our choice which preceded the falling due to the law of gravity.
• Some people think that they are thinking when they are just rearranging their priorities.
• Values, virtues and priorities in our heart determines how we think, process information and make decisions.
• Some christians have encountered disappointments in life in the past. They get over it but the disappointment have affected their heart to the extent that they live their christian life at a low level because they want to avoid future disappointments.
• There are issues that come along and rob our heat of what holds dear to us and our passion for God.
• There are 3 kinds of knowledge. (1) Mathematical, (2) Logical and (3) Relational. Adam knew Eve and conceived. To know someone is to enter into a relationship with the person. To know God is to enter into a relationship with Him. It is not knowing a great about God but knowing Him.
• The highest form of knowledge is knowing, relational. Highest form of knowledge is not law or logic but love.
• Our heart is the gateway to our spirit.What happens to our heart affects our spirit. The heart can be crushed and the spirit will be crushed too. The heart can be broken and the spirit can be broken too.
• Joshua & Caleb followed God wholeheartedly.They had a different spirit. They saw the same buildings and giants as the other 10 spies but they saw things differently. They were the only ones who entered the Promised Land. An 11 day journey took 40 years because fear came upon the hearts of the Israelites after the 10 other spies presented their report.
• Daniel followed God wholeheartedly. He had an excellent spirit.
• There is a difference between preaching the Word and ministering the Word. It is possible to speak mind to mind, make an audience laugh with a few funny stories, even speak soul to soul. But it is different to minister the Word to others. There is a difference between singing a Song and ministering a Song. There is a difference between saying a prayer and ministering in prayer.
• Anyone can pray with His name. But not everyone prays in His name. Jesus said, in His name, we can speak to the mountain and asked it to move to the sea. Jesus said to ask in His name, and it will be given to us. When we pray in His name, our heart and our spirit has to be involved.
• A person with a divided heart will have a double minded mind and live a defeated life. The greatest irony is that Solomon, the writer of  Proverbs 4:23 did not heed his own commands. The bible said he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. He married foreign wives and worshipped their foreign gods. The Bible said Solon heart had turned from the Lord God and he went after other gods (1 Kings 11:9-10). In the end, his divided led to a divided kingdom and the nation of Israel was never the same again.
• A heart after God is not where we are now, but a desire to be more like Him. It is about the direction we are going in. Example given. Category 1 christian, those who just accepted Christ and had lots of issues to resolve and much to learn about scriptures and God. Category 10 is those who are exactly like Christ. We find there are those in Category 3 who are young in Christ, but who are always full of testimonies about answered prayer, how God is speaking to them and dealing with the issues in their lives. Then we have those in Category 7 who have been saved 30 years who know the bible well but can only tell us what God did in their lives 25 years ago. The difference is that the Category 7 christians were in Category 8 and is now on the way to Category 6 while the Category 3 christian was Category 2 about 3 months ago. Therefore, it is not where we are now but the direction we are going.
• 2 Tests
• We are known by our reactions than our actions. We usually have time to think over our actions but not our reactions. We react out of our hearts. How we react reflects our heart.
• We know what has captured our heart by the price it takes to buy our heart or by the fact that we will not be bought by any price. A very rich man was sitting in a cafe drinking coffee. A sweet young lady sat at his table. He asked the lady if she will sleep with the man drinking coffee on the right for $10 million dollars. She said to him that $10 million dollars is a lot of money and for that amount she will sleep with that man. He then asked her if she will sleep with the man drinking coffee on the left for $10. The lady reacted, "$10? What kind of woman do you think I am?" The rich man replied her that what kind of woman is not the question anymore. Just the price.
• We all can fail as David did. But David had a heart after God's own heart. David could have ordered the prophet Nathan executed as king. But he confessed and Psalm 51 is the most public heart rending confession we can read. "Create in me a clean heart and renew a steadfast spirit within me". David asked for a clean heart. He repented. The bible said that David was a man after God's own heart. It is how we respond after we have fail that is important.