"Above all else, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life." (Proverbs 4:23)The heart is the muscle that is responsible for sending blood around your body and the blood provides all the nutrients and oxygen that you need to live. It is the core of physical life. Furthermore, the heart is the place where our emotions live. While it is our thoughts that control our emotions, it is our emotions that control how we feel, which influence the heart ("For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him." Matthew 12:34-35)
When God tells us to guard our hearts, what exactly are we protecting it from? From sin! He knows we are going to be faced with every temptation imaginable, because we live in a fallen world. Because of that fallen world , it is very easy for us to allow a little sin to poison and defile the very essence of who we are in Christ. The truth is the more we sin, the less it bothers us and the less it bothers us the more sin we allow into our lives.
So how does one guard their heart? Guarding our heart can be done by allowing God to establish boundaries and borders in our lives. He alone has the power to protect our heart. When we step outside those boundaries and begin to do things our way, sin creeps in and spreads quickly. If we stay focused on God and within the boundaries He has set, it will be hard to distracted from God's way. We must keep our thoughts on God ("Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth." (Colossians 3:2). When we begin to think biblically, we begin to live biblically!
"For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age. . . becoming a people that are Christ's very own, eager to do what is good." (Titus 2:11-12, 14)
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