Sharing God’s Word:
“Keep thy heart with all diligence;
; for out of it are the issues of
life”(Prov 4:23).
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Throughout the Bible the heart is viewed as the center of life and
is always associated with our thinking. Thus
Solomon declares, “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he”(Prov. 23:7). That is
why verse 23 advises us to
“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” The
marginal rendering is stronger:
“keep thy heart above all keeping; for out of it are the issues of life.” What
you are today and what you will
continue to be is the consequence of your life. Thackeray put it this way “Sow a thought,
reap a word; sow
a word, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap character; sow a character,
reap a
destiny.” So you see all life starts with our thinking.
.
“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the
issues of life” (Prov 4:23). Following these words
Solomon points out that such thinking affects the lips, the eyes, and the feet. In other words,
our
conversational life issues from our thinking. “Put away from thee a forward mouth, and
perverse lips put far
from thee”(Prov 4:24). It won't take you long to find out the kind of reading a person
engages in; the kind of
hobbies he is interested in; the kind of life he is engaged in. It all proceeds from a man's
conversation, and
that, in turn, out of the heart. This is why Jesus said: “Out of the abundance of the
heart the mouth
speaketh”(Matt 12:34).
Our life further affects the observational life. “Let thine
eye look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight
before thee”(Prov 4: 25). Your entire slant on life is affected by the way you think. When
man has organized
his thinking he is not bothered by side issues. Paul has the same idea when he says,
“.....this one thing I do....”
(Phil 3:13).
A still further area of life that is influenced by our thinking, is
our operational life. “ Ponder the path of thy
feet, and let all thy ways be established” (Prov 4:26). Once again, the marginal
rendering is even stronger:
“Let all thy ways be established, or ordered aright.” Once life’s
challenges are challenged there is no
question as to the path that we should tread. That is why the Psalmist says, “The steps
of a good man are
ordered by the Lord” (Ps. 37:23).
The Control of Life is to “Keep thy heart with all
diligence”(Prov 4:23). The New Testament helps us to
understand the secret of such control. Paul speaks of “Casting down imaginations, and
every high thing that
exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the
obedience of
Christ” (2 Cor 10:5). No one can be sure of his life until he has brought his mind under
the discipline of the
Son of God. So we see that the importance of life cannot be overestimated or under estimated when
trials and
burdens come along.
Take the example Moses left us when he said “I am not able
to bear all this people alone, because it is too
heavy for me” (Num 11:14). The pressures and problems bore down on Moses like burdens
on a camel’s
back. The last straw came when the children of Israel grumbled and whined about their menu in the
wilderness. Moses couldn’t stand it any longer; “Moses said to the Lord, why have
...You ... laid the burden
of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? ....where am I to get meat to give to
all these
people? ....I am not able to bear all these people.... the burden is too heavy for me”
(Numbers 11:10-15).
For us, the problem may not be all these people but all these
problems, or all this pain, or all these pressures.
We feel like the patriarch, Jacob, who said, “all these things are against me”
(Gen 42:36). But the Bible says
that all these things work together for good to those who love the Lord.” Rom 8:28 and Rom
8:37, says “In
all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”
Like the camel with a heavy burden, we sometimes need to kneel in
the desert place and let the Lord take care
of things, down to the last straw.
May our prayer be: May the mind of Christ, my Savior, live in me
from day to day, by His love and power
controlling in all I do and say!
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Food
For Thought:
1 One wedding
present to the happy couple was a toaster oven.
Soon after the honeymoon, the bride and groom tried it out.
Almost immediately, smoke billowed out of the toaster.
“Get the owner’s manual!” the husband
shouted.
I can’t find it anywhere! The wife cried, searching through
the box.
“Oops!” came a voice from the kitchen.
“Well, the toast in fine, but the owner’s manual is
burnt to a crisp.”
2 A farmer was
driving along the road with a load of fertilizer.
A little boy playing in front of his house, saw him and called.
“What’ve you got in your truck?”
“Fertilizer,” the farmer replied.
“What are you going to do with it?”
Asked the little boy.
“Put it on strawberries,”answered the farmer
You ought to live here,” the little boy advised him
“We put sugar and cream on ours.”