Guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it flow all the issues of your life. (Proverbs 4:23) Your heart, your innermost being, that great citadel of your life is formed by the thoughts you hold onto and persist with day by day. People rarely make the connection between the thoughts they entertain and the things that come to pass in their lives. Instead people think or conclude that life is random with some folks being lucky and others not so much. Sadly, they have never been taught that their heart, the things they believe deep down in their hearts, end up manifesting as the life they live upon the earth whether they be good or bad. The only thing that we human beings can control in our lives is the thoughts we choose to hold onto, to rehearse, to cleave to in our minds. Thoughts left unchecked and uncontrolled sooner or later result in misery as our minds are constantly being challenged with negatives and potentially bad outcomes. Show me a person that lives a happy and successful life and I will show you a person that has learned how to control their thinking. You owe it to yourself and your experience of life to learn how to control your thinking which always leads, just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow, to a happy life. Cultivate a healthy heart!
Typically when I bring up this crazy notion backed by God’s Word, people think I’m talking about their perception of life and the things that happen to them. They falsely conclude that by controlling their thoughts I mean trying to remain positive about everything that happens to them. And, while that is partially true, what I mean in actuality is that the things you believe in your heart are the things you will end up experiencing in your life, not simply your perception of them. If down in your heart you have learned expectations of poverty and the inability to have your physical needs met, you will always have trouble getting your physical needs met until you get that wrong belief out of your heart. The wrong belief didn’t begin in your heart. You put it there by your continual thinking and considering things that are not true. You put it there, not God, not your family and not the devil. You, like all of us I imagine, were taught things that simply are not true. Welcome to being a human. I used to teach a course and in the course I told people the amount of money they earned at this very moment in time was exactly what they expected to earn, no more and no less. This usually incensed them. You see, it is much easier to blame our lack of whatever it is we need on someone or something else. But, at the end of the day, it is the beliefs we have in our hearts that set the limits of our existence. You can apply this principle to every category of life. People who play the victim and are always being wronged by someone in some way have some beliefs in their hearts that need to be repaired. I’m certainly not proposing that life is fair, instead I am proposing that God gave us control over something that impacts our lives in an incredible way. Cultivate a healthy heart!
The way in which you can change the things that are in your heart that you no longer wish to experience in your life, is by learning to think correctly. Every wrong thing that ever got into your heart, got there by wrong thinking patterns. The devil and all of his evil associates work very hard to get your thinking going in the wrong direction. If they can get you good and scared of some negative health outcome, in that you worry about it and fear it day by day, watch out brother because it is on the way! And while that is certainly not the cause of all health issues, it is a powerful way to speed up your decline. The people who live in fear of diseases get them. Your heart won’t necessarily help ward off every thing that assaults a person, but it sure can help you believe God for a solution when you need it. You and I have a duty to control our thoughts. This may surprise you but Jesus controlled his thoughts at all times. I’m sure he experienced those wild ‘randos’ like we all do at times, but he never let them take root and establish a foothold in his heart. He simply refused to entertain anything that was contrary to God’s Word and God’s heart for people. If you want to change some things that are in your heart, which you can clearly discern by repeat negative things that seem to keep happening to you, you have to learn how to change your thinking. You have to confront those negative things that confront your mind. When you hear yourself think something foul about yourself or about your future, grab ahold of it and challenge it. Find some promise of God that contradicts it and say that instead. Soon you will discover that you can actually control your thoughts if you want to. Ever heard someone say they cannot turn off their thoughts? Well, actually they can control them instead of trying to shut them off completely. You can literally tell your mind, we are not going to think about that right now because it is bed time and we can get back to it tomorrow. (smile) Your mind doesn’t control you, you control your mind. If it goes bananas on you it is because you have gotten used to letting it go bananas. Grab those bananas one by one and get it back under your control. It takes some work; it takes some discipline and it takes some perseverance, but you can control it or else God would not have asked us to control it. Controlling your thoughts is the only way to cultivate a healthy heart. Cultivate a healthy heart.
God looks on the heart. In fact, when God is at work in your life, guess where He is at work? He is at work in your heart. He knows that your heart basically controls your life and He tenderly works with you to remove those wrong things out of your heart. He sees the things in your heart that have long since been hidden from your view. He knows what you need more than anything else. It has been my experience that God is always very gentle with me and never runs roughshod across my heart. He just sort of clues me in to life’s realities and then suddenly I become aware of a wrong belief, some of which I have been harboring for many years. But when I know, I know and am always immeasurably grateful. You can have this same experience. God will show you if you want Him to show you. He will get you to the real causes which generally are hiding out down there in your heart. You can learn to think differently. You can begin to control your thinking. You can become aware of the madness that just slithered across your brain waves and snatch it up and kick it the hell out. The end result is a healthy heart filled with positive abundant beliefs and as such you’ll end up experiencing a truly abundant life. The time is now to guard your heart no matter where you have been because God always provides a way out. Cultivate a healthy heart. You won’t believe how good your life can become…
Just some good thoughts…
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