FAITH CAPSULE: How one keeps the heart will determine how far one goes with God.

Proverbs 4

The word of God repeatedly warns all to keep their hearts diligently.
Deuteronomy 4:9 states, “Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life…”
To Keep oneself is to keep the heart diligently. 1 Kings 8:61 records, “Let your heart therefore be loyal to the Lord our God, to walk in His statutes and keep His commandments, as at this day.”
Proverbs 4:23 states, “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.”
How one keeps the heart will determine how far one goes with God.
Keep your heart diligently by opening the doors of your heart for the word of God.
The word of God is His strength, and when His word locates one by gaining entrance into the heart, the strength of God becomes a portion of such.
The heart of one is the center of strength. Jeremiah 15:16 testifies, “Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; For I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.”
Having the joy of the Lord is retaining the presence of God.
There is no strength like having the strength of God in life.
The more of giving self to the word of God is to know God and to increase in His strength which keeps one from stumbling to remain stable.
A heart occupied by the word of God will not have the mark of wickedness.
Jeremiah 17:9 admonishes all, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?
Ecclesiastes 9:3, “This is an evil in all that is done under the sun: that one thing happens to all. Truly the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil; madness is in their hearts while they live, and after they go to dead.”
The Bible demonstrates that the heart is where the rise and fall begins.
It is what flows from the heart of a believer that makes a believer living for God.
The heart of a believer will make or break a believer.
The heart is always the target for the devil to launch its attack.
Judas spent time with Jesus, going to places with Jesus. Despite his entire experience with Christ, his heart was not kept diligently to keep out the enemy.
The book of Luke 22:3-4 states, “Then Satan entered Judas, surnamed Iscariot, who was numbered among the twelve. So, he went his way and conferred with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray Him to them.”
Satan went after the vulnerable heart of Judas to do evil by selling Jesus out of his life.
Invariably, faith will fail when the enemy gains entrance into the heart not kept diligently.

Prayer for today: With desire, ask to be enabled to keep heart diligently.