Our Bible verse for today: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)
Our thought for today: “What’s in your heart determines everything else about you.”
Henry Ward Beecher was a well-known and widely respected pastor, speaker, writer, and social reformer in the mid-1800s. In much of his teaching and preaching Beecher asserted that the quality of any person’s life is determined by what’s in their heart. Commenting on Proverbs 4:23 he once wrote, “It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich according to what he is, not according to what he has.”
Of course, that kind of thinking flies in the face of human wisdom. People are usually considered rich based upon what they have. If you make a lot of money, own a big house, drive a nice car, wear expensive clothes, go on exotic vacations, and have a lot of money in the bank, then you are rich. And if not, then you are poor. So says the world.
Beecher’s point in the quote above, and Solomon’s point in Proverbs 4:23, is that it is what’s in your heart that makes you rich or poor. A happy poor man is better than a miserable rich man. A small apartment filled with love and joy is better than a large mansion filled with anger and strife. A content man of modest means is better off than a greedy man who is rich but never satisfied.
And so, Solomon warns us to carefully guard the condition of our heart. Prayerfully consider the things that are most important to you. What is it that you crave, and what captures and holds your attention? The condition of your heart will ultimately determine everything else about you – it will determine the quality of your life.
One of the best places to go to get your heart right is church. A good worship service can be a powerful tool in the hands of the Holy Spirit. Through the prayers, scripture reading, music, and preaching, as well as through the powerful spiritual dynamic created by a group of worshipers all seeking God together, the Holy Spirit can often break through a calloused heart faster and better in a worship service than anywhere else.
I would like to invite you to visit with us this Sunday at Oak Hill Baptist Church. Sunday school is at 9:00 and the worship service begins at 10:00. Give your heart to Jesus and everything else in your life will quickly begin to fall into place, because it’s the condition of your heart that determines everything else about you.
Oak Hill Baptist Church