Guard Your Heart. Proverbs 4v20-24 NKJV

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1 Guard Your Heart Proverbs 4v20-24 NKJV My son, give attention to my words, incline your ear to My sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep [Guard] your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life. Put away from you a deceitful mouth, and put perverse lips far from you. Today I want to challenge you to guard and protect what goes into your heart. Why? Because the forces or the issues of life come from your heart. Your spirit is the most important part of you, not your career. What you will have in your life tomorrow will be determined by what is in your heart today. If you allow your heart to be filled with the cares and anxieties of living, to be crowded with worries and thoughts of this natural world, then your future will be marked, not by supernatural blessings of God, but by the sickness, poverty and calamity this world brings. If, on the other hand, you will fill your heart with The WORD and the voice of God, if you make living contact with Him each day and feast your heart on His promises and His presence, your future will be one of joy and prosperity, healing and health. Instead of chasing after the blessings of God, you ll find they re chasing you and overtaking you at every turn. The gateway into your heart is through your ears, through your eyes and through your mouth. So in order to guard your heart, you need to guard what goes through your ears, you need to guard what goes through your eyes, and you need to guard what comes out of your mouth. The first thing God says in Proverbs 4 is give attention to my words. Do you remember how the teacher told us to pay attention and not be distracted by something else happening in the class or outside. If you have no distractions, you have no problem. God said to Joshua as well.

2 Joshua 1:8 NKJV This book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Your prosperity and success comes from the Word, not from the world. 1. Guard what goes into your ears Stop listening to all the negative reports of what is going on out there in the world. I am not saying that you should bury your head in the sand and not be informed about current affairs, but be careful that you don t become so consumed with it that you think everything is collapsing. Some people are so filled with fear, doubt, unbelief and discouragement that they can t see any way out. Why? Because that is what they keep feeding on. What food is to your mouth, words are to your ears. What words are you chewing on? What words are you feeding on? You need to feed on God s faithfulness. Psalm 37:3 NKJV Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. 1 Corinthians 10v13 NKJV No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. Charles Dickens said, We are living in the worst of times and the best of times. Even though we are hearing and seeing the worst of times all around us in the world, we can expect to experience the best of times. Because we in this world but we are not part of this world s failing system.

3 Because we have God s Word that will prosper us and give us good success. Now for some of you it is hard to believe that, but it s because you have inclined your ear too long, to all the bad and negative reports. God says, you must incline your ear to My sayings. God is also saying something. He is always speaking but are we listening? Say this: God is speaking and I am listening. Make a decision to start listening to preaching messages on CD s, Podcasts. Take time to read your Bible. That is the only way faith comes. Romans 10:17 NKJV So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Notice it says, hearing, not having heard. That means continually. And hearing the same thing over and over and over. Just because you ate bacon and eggs in 2001, doesn t mean you haven t eaten it again after that. Read books that will encourage and strengthen your faith. Don t just read anything. You are what you eat and You are what you read. If I read something that takes faith out of me instead of putting faith into me, I have enough sense to put it aside. Feed your faith and starve your doubts. So guard and protect what goes through your ears. 2. Guard what goes through your eyes Your eyes are another gateway into your heart. You and I need to guard and protect what goes through our eyes because it enters our minds. You don t see with your eyes, you see with your mind. You see through your eyes. Be very careful of the images and pictures that you allow to enter into your mind through your eye gate.

4 David said in Psalm 101v3 NKJV I will set nothing wicked before my eyes; I hate the work of those who fall away; It shall not cling to me. Psalm 119:37 NKJV Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things, And revive me in Your way. Don t watch things that are poisonous to your spirit. (VLNS) These media programs are designed by satan and his dark kingdom to desensitize your heart. They designed to dull your heart. Satan wants you and I to laugh about it, approve of it and accept it. When that happens, it causes your heart to no longer be sensitive to the things of God. You will struggle to hear the voice of God instructing you and leading you in the way He wants you to go. You will end up living in confusion and double mindedness continually. And even if you are spending time with God, you will do more catching up than overcoming. 3. Guard what comes out of your mouth Matthew 12:34-37 NKJV Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Whatever you deposit in abundance in your heart, that is what you will speak continually out of your mouth. You can always locate where people are at by sitting with them and listening to what comes out of their mouth. 35 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.

5 NIV 35 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. Who stored up the good in this man? He did. And who stored up the evil in this man? He did. Your future is stored up in your heart. If you want to see good things come to pass in your life, then you need to deposit an abundance of God s Word in your heart. And do it now before the storm comes. You can t build a house in the storm. Luke 6:46-49 NKJV 46 But why do you call Me Lord, Lord, and not do the things which I say? 47 Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. 49 But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great. It appears that the storm destroyed the house if you look at the presenting problem but if that was the case, it would have destroyed the other house as well. The root problem was that the other house had no foundation. Dig deep. Most important part of any building is the foundation. Your future is stored up in your heart. If you want to see good things come to pass in your life, then you need to deposit an abundance of God s Word in your heart. And what is in abundance there, is what you will speak out of your mouth. And what you say out of your mouth is what you will see come to pass in your life. So if you don t like what you are seeing in your life, then change what you are saying with your mouth. But the way you change what is coming out of your mouth, is to start depositing an abundance of God s Word in your heart. 36 But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment.

6 37 For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. These are idle words that you must get rid of, I m dying to have a cup of tea; I m afraid I m not going to make it; That scares me to death; I m terrified of flying; I m always so tired; Nothing good ever happens to me. Watch your words. Ask God to help you. Pray Psalm 141v3 Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; Keep watch over the door of my lips. Mark 11:23 NKJV 23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, Be removed and be cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. You will have whatever you say. Change what s in your heart. Pastor Lester Holland Sunday Message: 9 th December 2018