We have an enemy who is making every effort to gain access to our heart and destroy us. 1 Peter 5:8 says, “be watchful. (Our) adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him”. Satan’s point of attack in our lives is our heart. If Satan’s target is our heart then what are we supposed to do?
READ: Proverbs 4:23
Since we have an ENEMY who wants to DESTROY us, our heart must be valiantly DEFENDED! Just like the Avengers put every effort into defending the detonator from their enemy, we must put every effort into defending our heart from our enemy. The words “keep” and “vigilance” combine to communicate the idea of being a watchman on guard defending a fortress against an enemy. This is no casual security guard or a mall cop, but a soldier at war. What are some ways Satan tries to access our heart that we must defend?
We must valiantly defend our heart with our EARS (Proverbs 17:4) – Do you remember hearing a cuss word for the first time? It’s always a bit unnerving when your child comes home from school and tells you about what they “heard” at school whether a cuss word, a crude joke, or a lie. It’s unnerving because any evil that we hear has the potential of taking root in our heart. Why? Because hearing about wickedness and mischief awakens our sin nature. According to Proverbs 17:4, an evildoer “listens” to wickedness and a liar “gives ear” to a mischievous tongue. Our sin nature’s ears are “tuned in” to evil. Our choices of what we allow our ears to hear in music, conversation, and media is one way to defend our hearts from Satan’s attack. When we choose to hit the “mute” button on wickedness and evil the sin nature of our heart is deafened.
We must valiantly defend our heart with our EYES (Ps 101:3) – The word “worthless” means wicked or morally objectionable. We are bombarded by “worthless” images in our world today. Our culture gives us unlimited access to graphic violent, crude, sexual, and perverted visual content. Psalm 101:3 says that we must choose to “blind” ourselves to anything “worthless” by not intentionally putting anything wicked or evil in front of our eyes. Our choices of what we allow are eyes to look at in magazines, movies, and internet sites is another way to defend our hearts from Satan’s attack.
We must valiantly defend our heart with our MIND (Phil 4:8; 2 Cor. 10:5) – “Get your mind out of the gutter”. That’s a phrase that we hear when our thinking is evil or wicked. There are simply thoughts we must not allow to enter or stay in our minds. Philippians 4:8 provides us with a standard for what we should allow to enter into and stay in our minds, “whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellence, or worthy of praise.” 2 Cor. 10:5 tells us what to do with any other wandering thought that enters into our mind, we are to, “take every thought captive to obey Christ.” Any and every thought that wanders through our mind must captured and brought (or dragged) into the presence of Christ. It is Christ, then, who makes the decision as to whether the thought is allowed to stay or go. If a thought is something that Jesus would want us to think about, keep it, if a thought is not something that Jesus would want us to think about, reject it . . . that way it never has a chance to impact our heart!
CONCLUSION
Are we on watch valiantly defending our heart against Satan? If not, we are like superheroes who sit idly by and do nothing to defend ourselves against the enemy. Our hearts need guarding. If we are not watchful with our ears, our eyes, and our minds, Satan WILL enter unhindered and devour our heart and our entire life with it. It’s time to be watchful, resist him, and guard the most important part of who we are . . . our heart!
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