All About The Heart - Pearsons Ministries International

“Above everything else, guard your heart, because from it flow the springs of life.”

King Solomon left us a buried treasure in the book of Proverbs: thirty-one chapters of wealth and wisdom straight from God’s heart. But to me there is one gold-nugget verse that stands out above the other gems. Proverbs 4:23 begins with these three attention-gripping words: “ABOVE EVERYTHING ELSE.” Now we know that whatever words are about to follow this phrase must be extremely valuable and have the power to alter the course of our lives. So let’s take a minute to dig up the stash that God has hidden for us and is longing for us to find. Here it is:

“Above everything else, guard your heart, because from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23).

We have been not only encouraged but also commanded to guard our hearts. Why? Our lives depend on it. A guard has the responsibility to watch over, to make secure, and to protect from danger. Some people may passively skim over this verse and think, “Oh, that’s nice and sounds easy enough.” But take a closer look. Some translations say to guard your heart with diligence. A diligent guard is always on duty.

“Above everything else, guard your heart, because from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23).

But how do we guard our hearts? Let’s back up and read a few verses before this: “My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh” (Prov. 4:20-22). We keep our hearts by keeping the Word in our hearts.

In this passage, Solomon is not referring to the physical heart, the organ that pumps blood throughout the body. He is talking about your core, the very essence of who you are.

I love the translation that reads, “out of it flows the springs of life.” God designed His healing spring to flow from Jesus to our physical bodies—through every vein and every organ—providing restoration to every cell. Jesus said that out of you should flow a river of living water. That cleansing, healing river will flow freely and strong unless there is a blockage or a break in that flow. You could call it heartbreak.

I am convinced that sickness and disease is a result of a breakdown in the heart. Every sickness has a spiritual root, a hurt that led to a doubt, a doubt that led to wrong thinking and wrong believing. A break in the flow of life from the heart (i.e., heartbreak) is any form of hurt in you that hasn’t been healed.

Before there was unforgiveness, someone broke your heart. Before bitterness or resentment, you experienced heartache. All soul sicknesses, including insecurity, bitterness, and rejection, are not just feelings; they are serious issues of the heart that can only be healed by an encounter with Jesus.

“Jesus’ heart was broken so that yours wouldn’t have to be.”

A dear friend of mine was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma at the young age of twenty-three. The doctors told her that there was a mass wrapped around her heart. She could barely breathe. It was literally suffocating her. I asked her about the years leading up to the diagnosis, and she expressed to me that they were full of hurt and heartbreak. When she was fifteen years old, her parents went through a traumatic divorce, and her life as a teenager was never peaceful again. Growing up, she was always very close to her father; but as the years went on, he slowly began to resent her with no explanation why. He became verbally and psychologically abusive, and when she moved away to college at age eighteen, she sought help through many counselors in an effort to make sense of it all. She said her soul stayed in a constant state of turmoil, trying to figure out why her father, who had always loved her, suddenly despised her.

When my friend told me her story, there were two words she used to describe the five years leading up to the cancer: heartbroken and rejected. But several weeks into the treatment, she had a life-altering moment when she heard the Lord say to her, “I’m healing your heart, so I can heal your heart.”

She said in that moment, all of the heaviness completely lifted from her, and she hasn’t shed a tear over that situation since. She has been cancer free for seven years now, and she is enjoying life and her ministry with her husband and their new baby. Jesus had to heal the condition of her heart before he could heal her heart condition.

We can all learn from my friend’s story that thoughts of rejection, feeling unloved, unwanted, unvalued, or never good enough are dangerous heart conditions and must not be left to linger. When you know the truth, the truth will set you free; and the truth is “you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference He made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted” (1 Peter 2:9 msg).

We may not always be able to control what others do to us, but we do have the ability to control how we respond. Isaiah 53:3 says Jesus “[was] despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”

Let’s face the facts: if you haven’t already, you will one day face rejection; but you’re in good company. Jesus did too. Let’s keep reading; it gets good. “Surely He has borne our grief, and carried our sorrows” (Isa. 53:4). If you look up the word grief, you’ll find that it can also mean heartache or heartbreak. Jesus’ heart was broken so that yours wouldn’t have to be.

Jesus revealed the assignment on His life from the Father when He found Himself in the pages of Scripture, stood up, and declared, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He has anointed Me… to heal the brokenhearted” (Luke 4:18). The healing and health of your heart is a big deal to God, so you don’t have to live another day with a broken heart. Pray this with me:

“Lord, I make my heart open and tender before You now. I ask You to let Your healing love wash over me and heal every hurtful memory, and I choose to forgive those who have hurt me. I receive Your love shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5), filling the height, the width, the length, and the depth of my heart. Your perfect love is forcing fear out of me (1 John 4:18) and I am anchored and secure in You.”