This was the message at church today. Based from Proverbs 4:20-27 with an emphasis on v. 23
My son, pay attention to what I say; listen closely to my words. Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; for they are life to those who find them and health to a man’s whole body. 23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil. Proverbs 4:20-27

So, the message was that we are to beware (this is a warning!!), that there are thieves that will and are coming to steal your treasure (your heart, where your wellspring of life is). Keep your heart with all vigilance and watchfulness. Guard your heart more than any treasure, because this treasure is the one that will attract thieves. Wanna know what the thieves are? I’ll tell you….

First, there is the thief of spiritual laziness. That’s right, spiritual laziness will rob you of God. We have to listen carefully to the truth so that we don’t drift from it. If we fall into a spiritual laziness if we don’t stay vigilant in our quiet time, prayer time, and in our relationship with God. We need to have enthusiam, passion, and vibrancy, because they open the doors in our Christian life.

The next thief to rob our treasure is forgetfulness. If you forget your first love: “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.” Rev. 2:4-5 . The greatest damage we can do in our relationship with God and with one another is if we let them become shallow and superficial by forgetting our first love.

The third thief is weariness. Christian life is not the 4th of July and fireworks and Christmas all wrapped up together everyday. We encounter the normal mundane issues in life, like batteling a cold, making sure our families are taken care of, and trying to figure out what to eat for dinner, etc. We may have a tendancy to forget to look for God in the mundane chores of life, but we need to remember that He said He’ll be right there in the middle of those days and times! “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6 and “Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD ; my cause is disregarded by my God”? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isa 40:27-31

Another shifty thief just waitin’ to grab the treasure of our heart is busyness. There is a danger of letting us being busy serve us, and squeeze out our relationship with God, our time spent silent with God, or our relationship with others. And when we are giving of ourselves, it has to be LIFE. We need to not just talk about our love of Christ in a way that it sounds like information or education for us and others, it has to be living. We need to make time to draw aside and be quiet before God.

And the last doosy of a thief, is the enemy himself, Satan. Satan doesn’t worry about the lazy or weary Christian, he doesn’t even bother with them, because they are a waste of his time. The enemy is hard at work on the Christian whose heart is trying to be freshly stayed on God. The enemy will use whatever ways he can to do this, sometimes they are weird out of the blue occurances, or they can be just small hinderances and trivial matters that can waylay someone’s stayed thoughts and faith in God. Satan studies our weakenesses and he will do anything to sabatoge our relationship with God. And in the level of our heart if we are centering our life on intimacy with God, Satan gets infuriated and tries harder with getting us to doubt God’s love. The enemy just tries to do anything possible to change our focus, by getting us to see loved ones as enemies (small fights that seemingly erupt out of nowhere), or by getting us to see our friends in fellowship as against us (by creating misunderstandings over non-issues). Satan knows that if we are centered on conflict that we will lose our focus on God and begin to struggle.

Our greatest prize is our heart, that is where our treasure is!! John 4:13-14 says, “Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” God has given us a perpetual spring of living water to drink of everyday!

Can we be honest with ourselves and God to see where the thieves are succeeding? If you find a place, ask God to restore it! He is eager and beside Himself waiting our asking, He will heal the brokenhearted and bind up our wounds! He asks us over and over to keep our hearts tender and to not let them become hardened.