Heart matters

Read > Proverbs 4:20-27

Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life (v. 23).

Our hearts pump at a rate of about seventy beats per minute or so. Ergo, in one year, they pump between 3.5 million litres and 7 million litres of blood through our bodies – depending on our activities. They do enough work in 12 hours to lift a 65,000 kg (nearly 72 tons) tank car about 30 cm (or 1 foot) off the ground. Silently and steadily, they keep us alive.

So when we read, “Guard your heart above all else” (Proverbs 4:23), it makes a lot of sense. If our heart malfunctions, our whole body shuts down. And if our heart is healthy, we can do amazing stuff.

Often, the biblical use of the word heart refers to more than just a human organ. The heart represents the centre of our emotions, thinking, and reasoning. We read in Matthew 15:18-19 that “the words [we] speak come from the heart … for from the heart come evil thoughts.”

With that in mind, how intently should we guard our heart? The phrase “above all else” can be rendered “with all diligence” (Proverbs 4:23 NKJV). In other words, we should take a proactive and earnest stand in keeping our heart healthy. For our physical heart, this means getting regular exercise, eating a healthy diet, and going for regular health check-ups. Then there’s the need of our spiritual heart: How are we maintaining a healthy diet of God’s Word? What are we filling our mind with? Are any sins clogging up our communication with God?

It’s time for us to heed the advice of Jonathan Edwards: “See that your chief study be about your heart; that there God’s image may be planted; that there His interests be advanced; that there the world and flesh are subdued; that there the love of every sin is cast out; that there the love of holiness grows.” – Poh Fang Chia

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Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me (Psalm 51:10).

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How healthy is your spiritual heart? Is it beating to the rhythm of God’s ways? What needs to change?