A Matter of the Heart

“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”

Proverbs 4:23

Pastor Zach recently finished preaching through Proverbs 4 in our Sunday morning sermon series. The end of this chapter includes a verse that is familiar to many of us: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)  

In our culture, when we talk about the heart, we usually mean our passions and emotions. We say that an athlete plays with “real heart,” or we sing along to popular songs like “Achy Breaky Heart” that describe the heartbreak of a romance gone bad.  Our world often parrots the advice to simply “follow your heart” as a blanket answer to our problems. But is that what this proverb means—to “keep our ‘feelings’ with all vigilance?” A closer look reveals that the heart is much more than our feelings.  In the Bible, we learn what our heart really is, what it means to keep our heart, and why it is important.

WHAT IS THE HEART?

The synonym for “heart” in our culture as essentially being our feelings is partially accurate, but the heart is more than that. According to the Bible, the heart is the control center of our lives; it is the inner person, the real us.    It includes the mind, emotions and will.  Our heart is what we really think deep inside, which then dictates what we say and how we act. (Genesis 6:5; 1 Kings 11:3; Luke 6:45; Hebrews 3:12).

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO “KEEP YOUR HEART WITH ALL VIGILANCE?”

There are three words in Proverbs 4:23 that are related to each other: “keep,” “vigilance,” and (interestingly) “springs.” Each of these words in the original Hebrew has a connotation of defense or security.

The first word “keep” refers to “people’s maintaining things entrusted to them.” (Baker & Carpenter, 2003)[i]  Some of our Bible versions translate this as “guard.”  The second word “vigilance” refers to custody, a guard, or prison.  It has a sense of security or safety. The third word “springs” may seem out of place in this theme, but it is interesting to note that it is most often translated as “border” or “boundary” rather than as “springs.” For example, we see this word repeated in the book of Joshua, describing the boundaries of the territories that the Israelites claimed in the Promised Land (Joshua 15:7,11; 16:8; 18:12). 

When we think about the borders of a country, we know that they are guarded to protect its citizens.

And so when we put these terms together, it becomes clearer to see why the author used these particular words to convey a principle.  Keeping our hearts means that we actively watch and guard what enters the territory of our inner being.

Parents of young children understand the concept of vigilance well.  A personal story will help illustrate: Our children learned from a young age how to safely play in the water because we live on a lake.  One summer day, our church held a baptism at a neighboring lake.  While I chatted with friends, I kept a close eye on my four-year-old daughter.  I watched as she grabbed an inner tube, ran and jumped fearlessly off the dock, and began sinking through the tube.  She lost her grip and expected to touch the bottom like she did at our lake.  But this lake was deeper, and she was not yet an adept swimmer.  I saw her foolish action and charged fully clothed into the water to save my flailing child. This mama bear was vigilantly watching her little one.

Proverbs 4:23 is exhorting us to apply a similar attentiveness to our hearts. We need to pay close attention to our thoughts, feelings, and inner interpretations of life and guard what we allow to enter.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Our lives are an overflow of our hearts.  Jesus tells us in Matthew 15:19 what the well of the heart produces: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.  These are what defile a person.”  

Notice what was listed at the beginning of that list: evil thoughts.

Every word or action is preceded by a thought rooted in the heart.  Our hearts are the control center of our lives.  If we harbor bitterness, envy, or superiority deep in our hearts, our lives will reflect that in our words and actions.  Those roots produce fruit.  The fruit of bitterness is the defiling of many (Hebrews 12:15), the fruit of envy was the crucifixion of Christ (Matthew 27:18), and the fruit of superiority was division in the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 1:10-12). 

Still, it’s easy for us to tend to downplay our evil thoughts. We make excuses and justify our attitudes because we think that our biggest problems are outside of us—that difficult coworker, the romantic partner that broke our achy breaky heart, the defiant child, or the lack of money in our bank account.   But the Bible refutes these reasons and tells us that our real problem is inside of us: “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

Indeed, the human tendency to nurture evil thoughts started in Genesis with Cain and Abel. Abel’s sacrifice was acceptable to God; Cain’s was not, and therefore he was angry (heart attitude) and murdered (heart action) his brother. The LORD’s words to Cain are striking: “Why are you angry and why has your face fallen?  If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin in crouching at the door.  Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.” (Genesis 4:6)  We think our bad attitudes are not that serious, but God says otherwise.  He says that our hearts are the source of many of the problems we face.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

So what do we do about our sinful hearts? Our only hope is to first be given a new heart by Christ, also known as being “born again.” (Ezekial 36:26, John 3:3). When we confess with our mouth and believe Jesus is Lord, we become a new creation in Christ.  (Romans 10:9-10, 2 Corinthians 5:17) Then, by the power of Holy Spirit in us, we continually “keep our hearts with all vigilance.”  We keep our hearts by renewing our minds with God’s Word (Romans 12:2), confessing and repenting of sins deep in our hearts, and staying in close community with believers who have these same goals.

As we look to Christ our Savior and follow His teaching about keeping our hearts, we will find that what flows out of the springs of our hearts is that abundant life He promised. (John 10:10) Our life really is a matter of the heart.

[i] Baker, Warren and Carpenter, Eugene. (2003). The Complete Word Study Dictionary Old Testament. AMG Publishers.

Photo by Ryan 'O' Niel on Unsplash