The Mind: Above All Else

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

Proverbs 4:23

Recently I have been severely shaken by the number of men and women I know who have stopped following Christ. These are not merely people who tried Christianity for a few weeks or months and then whisked off like a fickle hummingbird darting from one spring flower to the next in search of sweeter nectar. I’m speaking of committed, spiritual people who, after they tasted and saw that the Lord is good for a decade or more, slowly drifted away.

Solomon fit that description. He trusted God to be his strength, his wisdom, and his refuge. He enjoyed the fruit of God’s blessings. But he forgot to fear God. He forgot to remain obedient. He forgot to guard his mind.

Solomon’s lifeview and worldview drifted from the rock-solid absolutes of Scripture to the world of feelings, to the secular lifeview and worldview of the pagans around him. He forgot to guard his heart. From the wisest man to ever walk the face of the earth to the most disillusioned, Solomon became one of history’s most pathetic characters.

A Voice from the Past

I wonder how many of the deceased long to call back from their deathchambers and plead with us to live differently. God afforded Solomon such an opportunity. The author of many proverbs, the echo of his voice reverberates down through the ages with lessons from his own indiscretions, ones that left him in tortured, twisted pain. He says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4:23).

Solomon knew that the place the enemy would attack would be the heart (mind). The evil one plots to conform your mind to the pattern of this world. “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy” (Colossians 2:8). The Christian must struggle to survive in a non-Christian world. More people desire for you to conform to pagan ways than would see you soar-on wings like eagles.

The Christian life and worldview depends upon the Word of God for its moral framework. The secular life and worldview depends upon feelings and empirical demonstration for its moral bearings. The pathetic reality is that our friends who are not Christian always hit the wall. But why is it that countless Christians also hit the wall?

A group of twenty-five Christian men revealed that only five had maintained the purity of their marriages. How can this be? When we live by our feelings, when we pick and choose among the benefits of a secular life, we inevitably weaken our resistance to its temptations. We forget to guard our minds.

Christians can live by the Spirit or succumb to the sinful nature. To live by the Spirit is not nearly the same as living by feelings. To live by feelings means you decide what is best for your life on the shifting sands of your human understanding. To live by the Spirit means that you go to the Word of God and build a course of action on a firm foundation of rock.

Weaponry

The Word assists us for both offense and defense. The sword of the Spirit—the Word of God—is an offensive weapon. “Take…the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). Anything we desire which conflicts with Scripture is a desire of the sinful nature, and all such feelings are unreliable. We can pierce and slay those desires to know where they will lead with the “sword of the Spirit.” Don’t guard your feelings, guard your heart, and guard it with the Word.

The Word also functions for defense in guarding our minds. “Take the helmet of salvation…which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). The helmet guards the head; salvation takes place in the mind. Eternal defeat takes place in the mind, too. In the same way a helmet saves the head from mortal wounds, the Word of God saves the mind from Satan’s infinite wound.

Solomon knew his own mind had been left unguarded. He languished in the smoldering ashes of a ruined life. He warns us from his grave. Have you been guarding your heart? Or do you live by your feelings? How have you left your heart unguarded? Pity the pathetic people who leave their minds unguarded, for many of them will stop following Christ.

Have you surrendered your mind to the right life and worldview? If you have left your heart unguarded, quickly post a sentinel at the gate to your mind. “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”

I SURRENDER

Father, I have left no sentinel posted to guard my heart. My mind has drifted toward a secular life and worldview. The Word of God has not been my defense. The Word of God has not been my offense. I am gripped by these haunting words called out from Solomon’s grave. Enable me to guard my heart, above all else. Amen.