Helping you grow in your faith, and encouraging you to make a smoothie
In this post I will talk about how to guard your heart as a Christian. I have included some thought provoking questions that I hope will help you evaluate different areas of your life.
You, dear reader, have a heart in your chest that beats around 100,000 times per day and pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood daily. God perfectly and masterfully designed your physical heart.
However, when God speak about the heart, He is actually referring to your spirt.
” Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23
God says our heart or spirt is where EVERYTHING flows from.
So, lets dive into the ways we can guard our heart/spirit.
Get close to God. Give Him the first part of your day. Instead of going straight to your phone as soon as you wake up, pray, and get in the word. Your Heart needs and thrives off of the word of God!
As an adult, it is your responsibly to filter what comes into your life. When you are in constant communication with God it becomes easier to discern what should and should not be a part of your life.
Do you treasure what God treasures and what Jesus taught? Or are you allowing the “treasures” of the world outshine what God loves?
When you get to know God better you will start to understand what He treasures.
QUESTION TO CONSIDER: How can you incorporate more time with God into your day?
Do you remember being little and your parents covering your eyes when an inappropriate scene came on tv?
Well, that is more or less what we should be doing for ourselves as adults. The entertainment industry and social media platforms are overloaded with perverse content.
As a result, we literally have to avert our eyes from images/videos that we know are dishonoring to God.
” …I will walk within my house in the integrity of my heart. I will set no worthless thing before my eyes” Psalm 101:2-3
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:
Does the content you consume add value to your life?
Popular people on social media are dubbed influencers because that’s what they do. Influencers, whether you realize it or not they inspire you to dress a certain way, they encourage you to try a product they recommend etc.
Similarly, the people you spend time with influence your behavior. Your friends have opinions, interests, habits etc. that will either harm or help your heart.
QUESTION TO CONSIDER:
Are the people you spend time with pushing you toward or away from God?
It’s easy to let your mind run wild with a fearful, anxious, or lustful thought. Do not let your mind runaway with sinful thoughts. Recognize the thought and stop it in its tracks.
Paul says: “We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2Corinthians 10:5
In Mark 7:21-23 Jesus said, ” For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come – sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
“Watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right nor the left; turn your foot from evil” Proverbs 4:26-27
There are places and situations we don’t belong in as Christians. For this reason, you must take control over your environment.
In other words, don’t put yourself in a situation where you know you may be tempted to sin.
QUESTION TO CONSIDER:
Is your current environment somewhere you can thrive?
In our society, most people are highly concerned with the outward appearance of a person.
Good news, God is not concerned with how you look on the outside, but He is concerned with how your heart looks.
” Do not look at his appearance or the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1Samuel 16:7
I trust this post has given you ideas on how to guard your heart as a Christian.
You can read an awesome article about what it MEANS to guard your heart HERE.