The heart is deceitful and prone to wander. Ask the Lord to help you guard your heart against temptations, enticements, and snares. Be vigilant in setting your heart on God above all else.
Ever heard that phrase, “He’s got a good heart?”
Well, sure you have. Hi, I'm Joni Eareckson Tada, and it is casually said of good people all the time. But is it really true? Jeremiah 17 tells us that the heart is deceitful above all things. Even a Christian’s heart is not basically good. Oh sure, when we come to know Jesus we are given a bent for good, but we’ve got a long, long way to go before our hearts are free of deceit and wickedness.
I was thinking about this recently when I was reading Richard Baxter’s “The Saints’ Everlasting Rest.” He talks about guarding your heart – I mean, really keeping a watch on what your heart thinks, where it wanders. Listen to what he says. Baxter writes this; he says, “Keep your heart employed. Chide it, should it become willfully estranged to God. Bend your soul to study eternity. Busy your heart with concerns about the life to come. If your backward soul begins to tire, hold its feet to the fire. Do not accept its laziness. Keep a close guard on your thoughts until you have mastery over them. Then you will find you are in the suburbs of heaven – then, you will meet with those abundant consolations for which you have prayed and panted, and which so few Christians here ever obtained. Is it not fitting that our hearts should be set on God, when the heart of God is so much set on us? He has given us the sun and the stars, the moon and night and day; he has given us rain showers and flowers, friendship, life and love, meat and drink, immeasurable joys and pleasures in abundance; he has given us health and strength; he has given us prosperity and security, his grace and peace; he has given us everything – can we not give him our hearts? If God does not have our heart, who or what shall have it?” Oh my goodness! Are those great words or what? And so invigorating!
And when I read them I thought Jesus, help me guard my heart. I’m going to keep my thoughts in check. And should the devil entice me or try to bait me with some forbidden pleasure, my soul’s going to respond with Nehemiah who, when there were those who tried to entice him away from God’s business, he answered them in Nehemiah 6, “I am doing a great work, and cannot come.” In other words, I will not slack off and do your bidding, devil. I cannot, and I will not come to you when you say I’m being too hard on myself, or that I should not sweat the small stuff, or that God would not mind this one little time. No, I am doing a great work. And like Nehemiah, I’m managing my heart. I’m busying my heart with more heavenly concerns. And I will not allow it to enjoy time off. And if I do allow it to rest, it’ll be a godly rest. Not a license to let it do whatever it pleases. ’Cause I know my heart. It’s prone to wander, prone to leave the God I love.
“So Lord Jesus, here’s my heart, oh, take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above.” Oh dear friend, guard your heart, would you? Because the Bible says, “For out of it flows the issues of life.” Be like Nehemiah. Commit yourself to God’s will and work, so that when your adversary whispers, “Lighten up; leave it be; don’t take everything so seriously,” you then can say, “No, I am doing a great work, and I cannot come. I will not listen or allow you to take advantage of my deceitful heart.” Because think of it, he who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how he will not also, along with him, graciously give us all things. And if he did that, you can at least commit your heart to him.
© Joni and Friends