This is a five-part series revealing and discussing the sins all of us know and yet underestimate. Typically, when we underestimate something, it has the ability to sneak up on us and cause significant damage.
I encourage you this week to think about the thoughts of your heart. Do not underestimate self-talk. Do not ignore your inner conversations.
They are often sneaky sins. Dark thoughts left unchecked can have the same destructive impact upon your life like termites can have on a mansion, road salt and chemicals on a car, and a rip-tide to an unaware swimmer. Each of these seems small but in reality, they destroy.
To “keep your heart” is like caring for your garden. You cultivate a healthy environment for your plants. The soil is the environment where plants grow. The heart is the environment that shapes a person. You care for soil by removing and adding.
When caring for your garden, you notice and remove weeds and anything that does not promote healthy soil. You add water and fertilizer. You know you cannot make the plant drink but you know it does. It takes in whatever is available.
1. Take care of your heart by examining your thoughts, removing what is unhealthy and adding what is true and right.
The remaining part of this week’s verse says, “for from it [your heart] flow the springs of life.” Two kinds of springs exist, pure and polluted. The purity level for a spring has to do with the drinkability of the water. If the water is bad, contaminants exist. Contamination comes from the water source or has been picked up along the way.
In this verse, springs are like our attitudes and behaviors bursting out into the open for all to see. The activity of our thought-life produces springs of purity or pollution in all we believe and do. Our thought-life may seem private but it’s really not. Sooner or later, it produces an aboveground spring.
2. Attitudes and behaviors come from the thoughts we nurture in our hearts and eventually burst out into the open - pure or polluted.
Followers of Jesus Christ take this verse seriously. We take it seriously because we know others drink from the springs of our heart. They take away a cup of pure refreshment or one of pollution. We know life is not just about us. It’s about others. It’s about God.
A life springing forth purity is one where God is in the heart. He’s not just in the heart; he is in active conversation with the person. He is touching, thinking, forgiving, and healing.
I encourage you this week to go deep. Drink in God-thoughts. Let them purify what is polluted. Do some soul care for you this week. Take a walk, just you and God.
