How to guard your Heart (Part I)
Lust
The second poison that often threatens the purity of our hearts is lust. To lust is to crave something sexually that God has forbidden. For example, when a single man looks at a woman who is not his wife (which now means every woman) and immorally fantasises about her, he is lusting.
Sexual desire within marriage is a natural and appropriate expression of sexuality, because God gave us our sex drives. But God also gives us specific commands forbidding us to indulge in those desires before we marry.
To fight lust in our lives, we have to detest it with the same intensity God does. Unfortunately, we often do not. Mathew 5:27, 28 says: “You heard that it was said, do not commit adultery. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” That is serious. How many times have men lusted for a passing girl? How many times have their eyes slid across a woman’s body? Are we repulsed by lust in our lives as we are repulsed by lust in others? What we are afraid to do before God we should be afraid to think before God. We should completely remove lust from our minds. We should pray “create in me a clean heart, o God.” (Psalm 51:10, Job 31:1), Job says: “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl.” Can this be one of the reasons why God was proud of Job? Job 1:8, then the Lord said to Satan: “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him, he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” Can God say the same thing about us? We should pray “God Help me to be like Job, who made a covenant with his eyes not to look lustfully at others. Forgive me for pampering lust in my life; help me to guard against lust. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, o Lord”. (Psalm 19:14).
Finally, we need to avoid those things that encourage wrong desires. Is it romantic novels, or movies which can motivate you to lust? Then avoid them. Is it the beach where plenty females are moving scantily dressed, then avoid the beach. When we evaluate our lives honestly enough to recognise our own lust and see the sorrows it causes God, we will want to destroy lust, before it destroy us.
- . Self-pity
The final pollutant of our hearts is self-pity. In a sense, self-pity is the worship of our circumstance. When we indulge in feeling sorry for ourselves, we turn our focus from God-His goodness, His justice, His ability to save us in any circumstance. And as we turn away from God, we cut ourselves off from our only source of hope.
We can so easily allow self-pity to seep into our hearts. When we feel lonely or crave someone to love and be loved by, it seems we have every reason in the world to complain, to sulk angrily because we have received a bad deal.
But do we really have reason to complain when we consider the cross? Spending our time sighing over what we have given up or what we cannot get does not impress God, obeying Him with Joy does.
Self-pity is a sinful response to feelings of loneliness. We do not sin when we feel lonely or admit a desire for companionship, but we do sin when we use these feelings as an excuse to turn from God and exalt our own needs.
Do you often find yourself focusing on your own sorry state and not relying on God to do the best for you? If so, you probably need to take a honest look at your tendecy towards self-pity. If you need to, you can diffuse self-pity by dong several things. First, stop basing your happiness on how you compare yourself with other people. Don’t get sucked into the comparison Game. To many people waste their lives pursuing things they don’t really want just because they can’t bear the idea of someone having something they don’t have. Ask yourself the question, “ am I lacking something in my life, or am I just coveting what someone else has?”
Second, when you feel those old feelings of self-pity rising, redirect them into compassion for others. Look around for someone who might share your feelings of loneliness, and find a way to comfort that person. Get your focus off your needs and help meet someone else’s.
Thirdly, count your blessings one by one and see what God has done for you. There are many who want to be in our shoes and they can’t get what we have. So thank God daily for His protection, provision, and health for you and your loved ones. Finally, learn to use feelings of loneliness as an opportunity to draw closer to God.
God Knows All Things
Yes, our hearts are deceitful, but the promise of I John 3:20 gives us hope in our labour. “For God is greater than our hearts and He knows everything”. God’s strength can help see us through the upheavals of our emotions. And we can take comfort in the knowledge that He doesn’t view our plight from a distance, shaking His head at our weakness. Hebrews 7:25 tells us that Jesus, the son of God always lives to intercede for us who has endured the same feelings of loneliness you and I have, and He understands how it feels to face temptation. He will help and sustain us as we trust in Him and faithfully guard our hearts.
