40 Day Daughter Of The King Devotional
Day 6
Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life (Proverbs 4:23)
Daughters of the King this scripture from Proverbs has so much value. The wellspring of life reminds me of the source. If our heart is the source of our life and we let anyone into it, its sure to get damaged, crushed, bruised, and broken.
We lock our housedoor or cars. Yet we open our house and cars to people we usually trust. We can't we have the same duty to our own hearts.
Its time to start being more diligent in guarding our hearts.
"Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. Mathew 7:6
Do not let anyone have such quick access to your heart. Test them and see if they deserve a place in your heart. Are they treating you with kindness, gentleness, and respect and display the fruits of the Spirit. Or do they shame you and are impatient and always criticizing you? You can have people in your life that do not have to have front-row access to your life. (Heart). Your heart will always have your family, but even with family you still may have to protect it from poisonous toxins and you might have to keep your distance to keep you heart-healthy.
As for friends and new acquaintances make sure you are guarding your heart to make sure the person is someone who earns your trust over time that they are genuinely for you. When we guard our hearts, we don't lock them up and throw away the key. We just should have an internal security guard looking for red flags, bad gut feelings that help keep the people out shouldn't have access to our hearts. By their fruit,
we will know them.
As for the single ladies. Just because a man seems very zealous for the Lord and seems to always be reading the bible doesn't give him the all VIP access to your heart. Does he display the fruits of the Spirit? Is he displaying the characteristics of Love?
1 Corinthians 13 1
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
Is he claiming to be a sold-out Christian and then gets easily angered over something small? Puts other people down frequently and then likes to quote scripture in the next breath? Let his actions be louder than his words and let time unfold to see if his actions are consistent. How can you expect him to give you love when he doesn't even know what Love is and is not holding out the Characteristics of Love. He can't give what he does not have.
When are heart is smashed by someone, especially someone undeserving. it can be devastating. It's hard to concentrate at work and all other daily tasks in life.
It's not just people that we need to guard our heart against, it could be seeds of sin that we do not want to grow in our heart or false teachings and foreign Gods.
“I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
“How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word.”
“I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.” (Psalm 119:9-11)
Filling our hearts with the word of God on a regular basis will help to be like a repellent of bad things coming in. It will give us wisdom and discernment to know who or what should not have access to our hearts.
If you need a manual protection guide to your heart if you do not know where to start. The Fruits of the Spirit can always be your go-to, Heart Protection manual.
Galatians 5:22-23
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
These fruits of the spirit are very healthy for your heart. They are organic and pump nutrients into your heart. They bring health and joy into your life. Just like we do not want to eat rotten GMO foods we do not want to consume spiritual GMOs to our body. Some food packages at the store say "All Natural" on the label but then when you look at the ingredients it tells another story. GMOs and high fructose syrup etc.. In the same way if someone or something claims to be Christian make sure you don't just look at the label but get your reading glasses out and take a hard look at the ingredient on the back and see if it lists the Fruits of the Spirit.
Don't get me wrong, we are still being sanctified and may be weak in some of the fruits of the spirit, that does mean we are a GMO Christian. A baby Christian is still learning babble and may be struggling in most of the fruits. They are not mature. Yet you see there is a difference between not being ripe yet and rotten. Your job to protect your heart from the rotten fruit.
I hope you will keep your heart healthy by feeding it with the word for wisdom and protection and feeding it healthy nutrients as the Fruits of the Spirit.
