Today’s exhortation – guard your soul
The world has become very security conscious and anything of importance is very well guarded. Everyone has locks on their valuables and we go as far as having alarms and CCTV to keep watch over them. However, I feel most of us neglect the most important thing, our heart or soul (mind/thoughts/emotions). The bible says, Guard your heart more than anything else, because the source of your life flows from it. (Proverbs 4:23). Things like being offended, bitter, unforgiving etc are like thieves that break in and steal the valuables of our hearts. Valuables like our joy, peace, hope, love and faith.
How often would one say I’m happy and ten minutes later feel the complete opposite because they allowed a negative comment to steal their happiness? We can’t control what people say to us, but we can control how we react to them. The bible tells us to guard our hearts above all else and a good place to start is by guarding our eyes because the eye is the window to the soul. E.g be careful what movies etc. We must also guard our thoughts by doing what this verse says – brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Philippians 4:8) Amen
Francis Hans-Jorie