Guard your heart

Proverbs 4:23 CSB

23 Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.

Illustration:

Clean Water and a cup of dirt.

Now the bible tells us to guard our hearts. In fact it says its pretty much the most important thing we do. Proverbs says that the content of our hearts can is a matter of life and death.

So here I have some clean water and I am going to mix in a little dirt. Not a lot of dirt but just a little dirt. And Im going to let that mix around a little bit.

This dirt represents everything that is not pure or holy. Holy meaning separated unto God.

Now I am going to add in a little more dirt.

Let me ask you this question. Is the change as dramatic as the first time I added dirt? No, its not. In fact, the change is almost undetectable and each time I add dirt sure the water get darker but not as dramatically.

Now What I want you to see here. Is that is how allowing things into our lives work. When we allow just a little bit of dirt in it harder for us to distinguish that we have let in more dirt. Before long we find that we almost don’t notice the change in our own hearts.

Before long we get used to this feeling of being dirty. But you know what Jesus didn’t come for us to live feeling dirty. He came to give us life, a life apart from sin, guilt, and death. He came and through his blood he came to wash us clean to remove the dirt and make us clean.

I often hear people say I am just a sinner saved by grace, I know what they mean by this but I would tell you to stop telling yourself that. Instead say , I was a sinner saved by grace and now I am saint and am going to act like it.

I know I am old to most of you but I remember very keenly what it felt like to want to be like everyone else. To listen to what everyone else is listening too. To stream every show that everyone else is watching. To want to feel normal but according to scripture what is normal in this world is for people to live with hearts full of dirt, and the guilt that comes along with it. Jesus didn;t come so you could be normal, he came to make you an extraordinary light to the rest of the world. To show them what Jesus can do in the heart of a sinner now new saint.

So Just like Jesus said to the man in John 5:6 “6 When Jesus saw him lying there and realized he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to get well?””

Do you want to made well. Do you want to be pure and clean?