Guard Your Heart!

This Summer is a season of change. In the summers of the 1960’s waves of cultural change washed over our social landscape with amazing speed. Fifty years later, the waves of change still pound our shores. Your children live in a culture where the God of the Bible is a national embarrassment – no reasonable person would worship such a God. Children raised to honor God will become the targets of a culture that thinks they have moved on from God.

The implications of these cultural changes mandate that we must be vigilant protecting our hearts – everything that we are flows from the heart.  Proverbs 4:20-27 tells us exactly how to protect and guard our inner man. Verse 23 is the centerpiece of this passage.  Verses 20-22 show how careful thinking guards the heart. Verses 24-27 show how corresponding passionate actions also guard the heart.

If you have taught your children to honor and obey God, be assured that your instruction will be assaulted by education, government, and the entertainment culture. If your children value marriage they will be assaulted by these same institutions. More and more those who believe that sex is to be the exclusive blessing of marriage as defined by Scripture are seen as social misfits who are filled with hate.

You may think this language is a little on the extreme side. To verify these concerns ask your school board or local government if they would encourage young people in your community to believe that sex is designed by God exclusively for marriage. The response will be everything from “well, that’s a nice idea but we can’t go that far” to outrage that anyone could be so intolerant to offer such a suggestion in the 21st century. Both answers are equally offensive to God.

This is what the summer of 2013 holds for your children.

It is time to guard your heart and the hearts of your children. If we are to raise a generation that will change our social landscape for the good of the gospel it must start with the heart. Please pray with me that as we examine this portion of Proverbs together that our hearts will be strengthened and protected. May God help us to bring the power of the gospel to our children and then to our nation.

 

Shepherd Press