Always Guard Your Heart

Every human is in a battle with Satan for their heart.

Satan attempts to “steal, kill, and destroy” our success in achieving God’s purpose for our lives by giving us a broken heart. For the sake of freedom, we must “guard our hearts, for everything we do flows from it.”

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:2)

Always guard your hearts, for Satan tries to defeat us by attacking our hearts!

“When the Bible speaks about the heart, it is not talking about the physical heart that beats. It is referring to the mind, the will, or even the inner man. The mind and the will are the places where you make your life decisions. Every choice you make. Everything you decide to do comes from a decision of your will or your mind”. (Clarence L. Haynes Jr.)

Since freedom requires sound decision-making, Satan attempts to defeat us by influencing our daily choices. He does this by implanting lies, temptations, doubts, fears, and negative thinking into our thoughts, hoping they will lead us to bad decisions. Therefore, for the sake of freedom, we must always guard our hearts.

When Our Heart Shatters

 you destroy the foundations of anything, the structure will collapse.” (Ken Ham)

Satan works to defeat us by destroying the foundations of our lives. According to Mark DeJesus, our life’s foundation is built upon how we answer two very important questions in our hearts: “Who am I?” and “Am I loved?”.

“Who am I?” refers to “your ability to live securely from your identity in Christ as Father God’s child: seeing my unique design and living powerfully from the identity God has given me.”

“Am I loved?” deals with “how well you are able to give and receive love in relationships: experiencing loving and fruitful relationships with God and others.”

Thus, having a strong identity and properly being able to give and receive are our life’s foundations, which Satan attacks. DeJesus said: “Your two greatest needs are to know you are loved and know who you are. Everything in life hinges on it.”

Not wanting us to achieve our God-given purposes, the devil constantly attacks our “foundation” by influencing how we answer the two questions. Satan works to create a sense of separation to love in us and to make us forget who we are in Christ to deter us from achieving our life purposes:

“What we think about ourselves determines how we live.

When we feel that we are unworthy, we start living like we are.

When we feel that we are failures, we start living like we are.

When we feel as though we are unimportant, we start living like we are.

Satan wants our hearts to feel brokenness so we will live broken lives” (Hosanna Wong).

In essence, if we believe we are unloved, worthless, and powerless, we are more likely to live defeated Christians, having our life purposes unachieved. Thus, we must guard our hearts as Satan implants lies and negative thinking in them, for He knows that if our God-given dreams are attained, freedom grows as hearts and lives transform.

When our hearts fail to receive love and we believe we are worthless and unworthy of love, our hearts become more unstable and susceptible to breaking, as the foundations of our hearts can potentially shatter into pieces. When this happens, the pains of brokenness negatively alter our capacity to make sound decisions, leading us to a defeated state where our purposes become unfulfilled.

Life Experiences Can Quench the Passion of Our Dreams

When the Creator designed man, He gave every future child of God a unique SHAPE, perfectly designed to complete a unique purpose. SHAPE is an acronym for our spiritual gifts, heart passions, abilities, personality, and experiences that are part of our identity. We use them, and with the help of the Holy Spirit empowering and guiding us, we can achieve our purpose. When we abide in the Spirit through an intimate love relationship with God, we receive the power of the Spirit to do all things; in our strength, we have insufficient capacity to complete our purpose. Unfortunately, Satan attempts to create a sense of separation from God’s love in us to prevent us from experiencing the necessary abiding required to receive the Spirit’s empowerment and direction to achieve our purpose. Those who experience brokenness in their hearts often struggle to fully receive God’s love, potentially leading to problems in abiding in Christ. Christians who don’t consistently abide struggle heavily in fulfilling their God-given dream.

Those with a broken heart caused by lousy life experiences often have more incredible difficulty in abiding in a love relationship with the Trinity because they are more likely to struggle to receive God’s love. If you don’t receive love, you are less likely to give it back in return, and you are less likely to experience an intimate, abiding love relationship with that person you failed to receive love from.

If we aren’t abiding in the Spirit, we can become more vulnerable to life struggles, as we are not receiving the Spirit’s guidance and empowerment to do everything. Lousy life experiences can eventually quench the passion of chasing God-given dreams, as adversity, past failures, poor identity, fear and doubt, lack of results, and the absence of open doors can make us not believe the dream will come true despite our highly motivated efforts. As we face these situations, the devil likes to implant negative thinking, doubt, and fear to discourage us from trying to achieve God’s plan for our lives, as He also works to discourage us from abiding and trusting in the Trinity, the source of all our strength.

When hearts are broken, human decision-making often becomes compromised, potentially negatively affecting the chances of our dreams being achieved. When brokenness either quenches the passions of our dreams or leads to failure in trying to achieve them, the devil wins. Thus, the devil attempts to break our hearts and destroy the foundation of our lives by trying to influence how we answer the two questions (Who am I? Am I loved?). Thus, we must always guard our hearts against the devil’s tricks.

A Broken Heart

Sources:

Clarence L. Haynes, Jr.

You Are More Than You’ve Been Told, Hosanna Wong

Seeing God As A Perfect Father, Mark DeJesus

5 Ways Your Heart is Broken

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *