“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” – Proverbs 4:23
Proverbs 4:23 is an incredibly important verse to us at Keep Your Heart Ministries. It’s where we find our name and our primary focus. But this verse should also be incredibly important to each and every believer because it offers counsel that we all desperately need.
It’s a short verse, but it’s packed with meaning. Let’s break it down: we have a simple exhortation (keep your heart) followed by an explanation (out of it are the issues of life). Understanding these two phrases will be extremely helpful in our quest to live separated lives in a corrupted world.
To “keep” your heart is to guard it. Like a guard who stands at the door of a prison, we keep a careful watch on our hearts to make sure that the things which do not belong inside of it are not permitted to enter, while also ensuring that the things which should not come out of it are kept at bay. This is to be done “with all diligence” because it is of primary importance. Interestingly enough, if you just translated this Hebrew phrase literally it would sound something like: “keep your heart with all keeping.” That’s a shorthand way of saying: of all the things that need to be guarded, your heart is the number one priority.
Why is it so important that we keep our hearts? Because everything else in our life flows out of our hearts. That is what is meant by the second phrase of this verse: “out of it are the issues of life.” The heart is the wellspring of life. All thoughts, attitudes, words, and actions find their source in our hearts. If we protect our hearts from corrupt influences we can live that separated life we are called by God to live.
We have to remember that purity in all areas of life is a matter of the heart. We cannot hope to deal with our outward symptoms until the inward, underlying issue has been addressed. Over these next few days we will take a look at the surrounding verses in this passage to discover more of what it means to keep our hearts and exactly how we can accomplish it.