Our heart is the entrance and exit to our whole being; we need to deal with our heart and keep our heart with all vigilance, for from it are the issues of life (Prov 4:23).
Especially as we grow up humanly and also spiritually, we need to learn the lesson of keeping our heart, maintaining our heart pure before the Lord, and dealing with our heart so that it would not love certain things but seek after and pursue the Lord.
Prov. 4:23 is a very precious verse, and we treasure it very much, for it encourages us to keep our heart with all vigilance, for from it are the issues of life.
For us to live a godly life, we need to exercise our spirit over the word of God, and especially in coming to the book of Proverbs, there are some key verses in this book that can help us feed our inner man, nourish our new man, and cause us to grow and live a godly life.
First, we need to see a vision, a clear vision of God’s economy; such a vision should govern and direct us, for, without vision, we cast off restraint and do not live a godly life.
Second, we need to buy the truth and not sell it; we need to know the truth, be filled with the truth, and uphold the absoluteness of the truth, allowing the truth to uplift us to its standard, instead of us trying to lower down or dilute the truth to fit our situation.
Our Christian life and our living a godly life is not merely according to some principles in the word of God; it is according to the truth in the Bible, and we need to be absolute for the truth, take the way of the truth, and not compromise the truth in any way.
The third gem in Proverbs is Prov. 20:27 speaking of the spirit of man as the lamp of Jehovah, searching all the innermost part of our inner being.
Hallelujah, we can live a godly life by living in and according to the mingled spirit, the Spirit with our spirit!
And when we turn to the Lord and contact Him, especially when we call on His name and pray-read His Word, the Spirit in our spirit searches us, shines in our inner being, exposes anything of darkness or shadows, and infuses us with God.
Today we want to see the importance of our heart; we need to keep our heart with all vigilance, for from it are the issues of life.
We need to keep our Heart with all Vigilance, for from it are the Issues of Life
When we were regenerated, the Lord gave us a new heart first, and then He made our spirit new (Ezek. 36:26).
Our relationship with the Lord first depends on the heart, because our heart is the very organ by which we express ourselves and by which we make decisions to accept or reject things (Acts 8:37; Rom. 9:9-10).
Our soul is our person itself, but our heart is our person in action (Luke 1:66; 2:19, 51; Acts 11:23; Eph. 3:17; 1 Thes. 3:13).
We all have a soul; we all are a soul. But when our soul is in action, that is our heart in motion.
We love and hate with our heart; we express ourselves with our thoughts, intentions, desires, and decisions with our heart.
We have something in our inner being that represents us, and this representative is our heart (Luke 6:45; John 16:22; 2 Cor. 3:16).
When we meet someone, we don’t remember that person merely by the facial features, the height, etc but by his heart, by how he behaved, what he said, how he expressed himself. Our heart is our representative.
When we believed into the Lord Jesus, we believed into Him with our heart; when He came into us, He came into our heart.
Our heart is the entrance of our being, the guard at the gate of our being; whatever our heart likes, that’s what our being enjoys, and whatever our heart hates, this is what we detest. We need to keep our heart with all vigilance, for from it are the issues of life (Prov. 4:23).
To keep our heart with all vigilance is to guard our heart; the issues of life are the flowing out of life.
We need to realize the crucial importance of our heart, for it is by the heart that we believe into the Lord, with our heart we love Him, and when we turn our heart to Him we can behold Him face to face and are transformed into His image (Rom. 10:10; 2 Cor. 3:18).
Our heart is the organ we use to make a decision, to love, to receive, to reject, to think, and to draw near to something. Although our spirit is pure, when it comes out, it expresses what is in our heart, for our spirit is encapsulated and enveloped by our heart (2 Thes. 2:17; 3:5).
In the matter of experiencing our salvation, God came to us first to touch our heart; with our heart, we believe into salvation.
We are saved by our heart opening up to receive Christ and thus experience salvation.
This is why it is very important that, in gospel preaching, whoever speaks would be skilful to touch the heart of the listener.
We may present the truth of the gospel in a clear way, but if we don’t touch man’s heart, he will not be saved.
For God to come in, the heart needs to be open; for the flow of life to come out, the heart needs to be open and dealt with.
When the spirit, who is pure, comes out, it has to pass through the heart.
Our heart is composed of four main parts – the mind, emotion, and will (part of our soul) and our conscience (part of our spirit).
If our heart loves things, hates things, has certain thoughts and opinions, and has a stubborn will, what comes out of our spirit through our heart will be tainted and not pure.
Many times, because our mind, emotion, and will are crowded, cluttered with worldly things, pleasures, and philosophies, then when our spirit comes forth, it brings along with it these flavours.
We need to keep our heart with all vigilance, for from it are the issues of life.
Our heart is the entrance and he exists to our whole being (Matt. 13:19; 15:18-19).
The things which proceed out of the mouth come out of the heart, and those defile man; it is out of the heart that things such as evil reasonings, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, and blasphemes come out.
What is in our heart, that is, what comes out of our mouth; our heart is the entrance and exit to our whole being.
It is through our heart that our real being comes out because the traffic of our being is through our heart (Luke 6:45).
Our spirit is deep within, being the source of our being; our heart, however, is the passage, the entrance and the exit, through which the traffic in our being passes (Matt. 12:34-35).
In order for us to be a proper Christian, we need not only to exercise our spirit but also to guard our heart; we need to keep our heart with all vigilance.
The way we guard our heart is by keeping it with all vigilance. It is good to tell the Lord in all honesty,
Lord Jesus, we want to keep our heart with all vigilance, for from it are the issues of life. Oh Lord, our heart! We turn our heart to You and we welcome You in our heart. Come in, Lord, and fill our heart. Make Your home in all our heart. May our heart be purified and clean so that there may be much life flowing in and flowing out of our heart. Help us guard our heart, Lord, by keeping it with all vigilance, so that there may be a flow of pure living water out of our heart. Amen, Lord, grant us to have a pure heart so that we may see God. We want to see You face to face so that we may be infused with You and be transformed into the same image as Christ!
Dealing with our Heart to have a Pure Heart to See God and be transformed into the image of Christ
In the church life in the Lord’s recovery, we treasure our spirit; we love to exercise our spirit and we learn to live according to the spirit.
However, we need to realize that, in our relationship with the Lord and with those around us, our heart has a crucial role, and our need is to keep our heart with all vigilance, for from it are the issues of life.
At the time of our conversion, God renewed our heart and spirit; first, He gave us a new heart (He took out the heart of stone and replaced it with a heart of flesh), and He gave us a new spirit (He put His new Spirit into our spirit to renew it).
The first thing that He touches when He comes to us is our heart.
The entrance for God is our heart, and when our heart is turned to Him, we can enjoy Him and experience Him. If we want to see God, we need to be pure in heart (Matt. 5:8).
We have the fellowship of life, the sense of life, and the law of life within; we all have the anointing of the Triune God within us.
For us to experience all these wonderful functions of the divine life in our spirit, we need to cooperate with the Lord by dealing with our heart.
Even before we exercise our spirit, we need to learn to deal with our heart so that we may have a pure heart.
What does it mean for us to deal with our heart? Dealing with our heart doesn’t mean that we should be introspective, dig into the depths of our being, and seek to find what’s the problem here and why did that go wrong there.
Our heart is composed of our mind, our will, our emotion, and our conscience; to deal with our heart we need to be renewed in our mind, have a loving emotion, be right in our conscience, and have a soft will.
If we deal with our mind, emotion, will, and conscience, we will have a proper heart, a pure heart; then, we can see God, we can have an entrance into our being for God and His life, and He can also flow out of us.
If we deal with our heart to have a pure heart, He can have the ground to deal with us in a proper way, and we will have the Triune God within us as life and the anointing.
We need to practice opening to the Lord in prayer concerning the inward parts of our being, the components of our heart.
We need to open to Him in prayer concerning our mind, asking Him to give us a clear mind so that we may have an understanding heart.
We need to open our emotion to the Lord and ask Him to draw us so that we may run after Him (Song of Songs 1:4); we need to pray for the Lord to give us a loving heart toward Him and emotions to love only Him and what He loves.
In regards to our conscience, we need to come under the Lord’s light and confess anything that the light exposes.
As we pray in this way, as we open to the Lord and give Him the ground in our heart, we will realize how hardened and stubborn is our will, and we will pray that our will would be softened.
This is the way for us to deal with our heart – by opening to Him in prayer every part of our being and asking Him to soften our heart, enlighten and renew our mind, give us a loving emotion toward Him, wash and cleanse our conscience, and soften our stubborn will.
As we pray to the Lord in this way, our heart is being purified, for our mind becomes clear and renewed, our emotion is loving, our conscience is right with God, and our will is soft and subdued.
Such a heart is pure and right, and when we have such a heart, we can see God, we can be infused with God, and we can be transformed into the glorious image of Christ.
We all need to deal with our heart to have a pure heart so that we may see God and be transformed into the image of Christ, the firstborn Son of God.
Lord Jesus, we turn our heart to You; soften our heart and purify it. Give us a clear mind and an understanding heart. Renew us in our mind, Lord. Draw us, we will run after You. Draw us, Lord, and give us a loving heart toward You. Give us emotions that love only You. Shine on us and enlighten our conscience; we agree with the divine life and we confess anything that Your light exposes so that our conscience may be clean and pure. Lord, we open to You concerning our stubborn and hardened will; soften our will, dear Lord, and make it submissive to You. Purify our heart, Lord, and grant us to have a clean and pure heart so that we may see God and be transformed into the glorious image of Christ!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1964, vol. 4, “Practical Lessons on the Experience of Life,” pp. 459-460, 464-465, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes (2020 winter training), week 10, Living a Godly Life.
- Hymns on this topic:
– In dealings with the Lord as life / We need a proper heart, / That of His riches, in His grace, / We fully may take part. / We need a heart in all things pure, / With mind both sound and clear, / To understand His mind and heart / In trembling and in fear. (Hymns #744)
– Dig away, dig away, dig away, / Condemnation in my heart dig away! / Dig away, dig away, dig away, / Condemnation in my heart dig away! / All the guilt has to go / That His life may flow… Hallelujah! / Dig away, dig away, dig away, / Condemnation in my heart dig away! (Hymns #1214)
– Jesus Lord, I’m captured by Thy beauty, / All my heart to Thee I open wide; / Now set free from all religious duty, / Only let me in Thyself abide. / As I’m gazing here upon Thy glory, / Fill my heart with radiancy divine; / Saturate me, Lord, I now implore Thee, / Mingle now Thy Spirit, Lord, with mine. (Hymns #1159)
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