(Proverbs 4:23)
The heart is the seat of emotions. It is where all your opinions and desires are formed. Your thoughts towards certain tastes, colors, music, dress, etc are all originated in the heart. What you allow to into your heart will come out.
To "Keep" your heart means to guard it. Protect it. Watch over it carefully. Actively watch out for things that will hurt it.
When you are guarding your heart, you can't just say you're guarding it, and then lie down and not pay attention to what is going on around you. You have to be alert to what the enemy is doing. And you can't just protect it from the front. The enemy can and will hit you from the back, sneaking in where you least expect him. BE ALERT!
It is also important that we keep our heart "with all diligence". This is the idea of putting it in a prison. The heart, on its own will want to do what's wrong. So not only do we have to guard it against the enemy, we have to guard it against what it wants to do. You have to discern what it good and bad for your heart. Do not follow your heart.
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jer. 17:9)
Instead guard it, lead it, protect it.
And what is the best way to guard it?
Read God's Word. He has a lot to say about the heart.
"For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Heb. 4:12
"I the LORD search the heart, [I] try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, [and] according to the fruit of his doings." Jer. 17:10
"If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:" Ps. 66:18
Not only should we read it, we should memorize it, and ponder it throughout the day, taking seriously the things we read. And doing what God's Word says.
As the Psalmist says "Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee." Ps. 119:11
"But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night." Ps. 1:2
"I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways. I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word." Ps. 119:15-16
"Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee." 1 Tim. 4: 15-16
"Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out it are the issues of life."
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