Guard Your Hearts

Deuteronomy 6:1-25                                                          Kevin E. Jesmer

Key verse: Deuteronomy 6:12                                        7-27-15

“be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”

Proverbs 4:23 reads, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

God’s grace was poured out on the Israelites in great abundance. For four centuries, the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. They were exploited. They had no future. They suffered greatly. But, at the right time, God delivered his people from slavery. He raised up Moses and worked through Moses and other leaders, to bring his people to the Promised Land. But not before growing them as a nation through their forty years of wandering in the desert. God promised to bless his people greatly, if they worshipped and feared him, and trusted him enough to obey his commands.

To see the nature of his blessing look at verses 2-3, which read, “so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3 Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, promised you.”  God promised his people that if they feared him and obeyed his commands, then generations of their descendents will have faith. The majority would enjoy a long life. Things would go well with them and they would increase greatly in number as they grow in prosperity.

The blessings are further described in verses 10-11, which read,

“When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, 11 houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied,”

God would fulfill his promises that he had given to Abraham and the other Patriarchs. The Israelites would be comforted and encouraged, knowing that God is with them and faithfully guiding them. They would move into cities, built by the nations that received God’s judgment due to their centuries of worshipping idols that involved child sacrifice, extreme cruelty, sexual immorality and prostitution. The unrepentant people groups would be displaced by the Israelites. In this new land, the people would not be hungry, but have delicious and nutritious food to eat. They would have their own homes, vineyards and olive groves. This sounds like a wonderful and hopeful future for the Israelites, all provided for them by God’s love and grace. All they needed to do was obey the Lord.

But there was one thing that God was really concerned about. He was concerned about the hearts of his people. Look at verses 3 and 12,

“Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, promised you.” And now verse 12, “be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”

God knew that the heart of any people is fickle and changeable. The heart can be swayed by different circumstances, especially in times of abundant blessing. In these times, it is so easy to allow our hearts to become vulnerable. That is one reason why God gave this command in verse 5, which reads, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”

God warned his people about the propensity to fall away after experiencing God’s grace. He told them what would happen when they did not guard their hearts. Look at Deuteronomy 7:1-4,

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you— 2 and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. 3 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4 for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you.”

God knew that his people would turn away from him to follow other god’s, the idols of the land. The idol worship would lead them astray as nation. Then they would become objects of God’s wrath, ceasing to be blessed any longer.

God consistently warns us, to this day, that guarding our hearts is very important. Proverbs 4:23 reads, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Paul warns Timothy of the danger of acquiring wealth in 1 Timothy 6:10.

“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” .

There are some Christians who feel that they have no problem with guarding their hearts, even while living in the most prosperous society in all of history. They feel overconfident in their own strength to stand in faith and walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul has a warning and also a hope, for such believers in 1 Corinthians 10:12-13. He states, “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” Yes, God is there to protect us and make us stand. But that does not take away from the fact that we are called to guard our hearts, “lest we fall.”

In this chapter of Deuteronomy (6), we find several areas in which we can guard our hearts. It involves seeing God as he is, the one and only true God who calls us to live before him with a healthy fear of him in our hearts. It means adopting an attitude of obedience to God’s commands. It means remembering God’s grace with a heart full of thanksgiving. It means sharing God’s grace, especially with the next generation and then the next, concerning about how they too can guard their hearts. We will explore each one of these in upcoming devotionals.