Keep thy heart

“Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life”

Proverbs 4:23 [KJV]

One of my sisters gave me a colouring book of KJV verse designs several years ago. So far, I have around a dozen finished pages stuck to my bedroom wall. One of the designs however, so caught my attention – and not just because I used bright textas – that I pulled it down and placed it in the front of my folder.

The verse on the page is Proverbs 4:23, which says, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” The Lord has reminded me of this verse several times recently. Each time the context was different: once it was about a video I was watching, then about how I was interacting with a specific guy, then about my emotional response to a crisis, and yet another time was about an upcoming event. Each time, it was as though the Lord was asking, “Naomi, what course of action is going to best keep your heart focused on Me?”

Outside of Scripture, we are rarely told to prioritise keeping our hearts. Society encourages us to follow our hearts, express our feelings, and give our hearts to causes or persons. But here in Proverbs 4:23, we’re commanded to guard our hearts. So, let’s look today at why we should keep our hearts, and then how we keep our hearts.

We need to keep our hearts because our hearts are valuable. If we see something as valuable, we’ll look after it. For example, my family has an old, plastic toy lamb. It’s scruffy looking and financially worthless, but we value it because it’s been in our family for three generations. Similarly, what makes our hearts so valuable is the emphasis God places on a having a pure heart (Matthew 5:8, 1 Timothy 1:5). “Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully” (Psalm 24:3-4). Jesus knows our thoughts (Matthew 9:4), and the Lord searches our hearts (Romans 8:27) so there will be consequences if we fail to keep our hearts. “I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings” (Jeremiah 17:10). We might fool people, but we won’t fool God. When the prophet Samuel went to anoint a new king, God said of Eliab, “Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). Proverbs 4:23 says our hearts must be kept because “out of it are the issues of life.” Proverbs reminds us, “For as [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7a), while Jesus Himself said, “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34).

We also need to keep our hearts because they are vulnerable. Hearts are fragile. We’re so easily deceived by the wickedness of our own hearts (Jeremiah 17:9). We might want to do right and have a pure heart, but Jesus warned, “Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak” (Mark 14:38). Because our hearts are easily distracted from doing right, the Psalmist prayed, “Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name” (Psalm 86:11). A quick look at a few prayers recorded in Scripture tells us just how vulnerable our hearts are: our hearts need cleansing and renewal due to sin (Psalm 51:10), protection from conformity to this world (Romans 12:2), protection from leaning on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6), and from the devil’s wiles (Ephesians 6:11). Our hearts can often focus on wrong things, as Matthew 6:21 says, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”.

Our hearts are important, and our hearts are vulnerable. But how do we keep them? Much could be said on this topic, but let’s stay with what’s found in the surrounding verses to our text. Proverbs 4:23 is effectively the crux of the instructions from the writer to his son found in verses 20-27. There are three key instructions in these verses about how to keep our hearts: make Scripture central, put away sin and stay focused on God’s ways.

Firstly, make Scripture central in your life. “My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart” (vs 20-21). Psalm 119:9 also emphasises the importance of Scripture, “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word”. Hiding God’s Word in our hearts will keep us from sin (Psalm 119:10). Our hearts often want to make emotion-driven decisions, but knowing (and doing) what Scripture says helps us make fact-driven decisions based on unchangeable Biblical standards.

Secondly, the passages tells us to reject sin and sinful influences, “Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee” (v24) and “remove thy foot from evil” (v27). This includes both confessing and forsaking our own sin (Proverbs 28:13), and separating ourselves from the influence of those who accept and commit such sins (Proverbs 13:20).

Thirdly, we need to stay focused on God’s ways. There are three variants of this instruction in the passage: “Let your eyes look right on” (v25), “Ponder the path of thy feet” (v26), and “Turn not to the right hand nor to the left” (v27). The previous instruction was to reject sin, but now the author of Proverbs goes one step further. The question is not whether some potential action is sinful, but whether it is going to help us best keep our hearts. It’s the same thought found in 1 Corinthians 6:12, “All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.” Something we’re pondering might not be sinful, but it may not be God’s best for us. It might be right for another person, but is it what God wants for me, is it going to strengthen my relationship with Him, is it going to best keep my heart focused on God and God alone?

In summary, may each of us recognise the importance of keeping our hearts. May the Lord enable all of us to keep our hearts through meditating on scripture, rejecting sin and staying focused, “for out of [the heart] are the issues of life.”