This is part 6 of our devotionals on John Flavel’s book, Keeping the Heart, and what an amazing study it has been! Flavel has been laying bare the importance of keeping the heart. In essence, the heart refers to the decision-making and will (not the seat of the emotions). It is the fountain of all our thought and action. Behaviour emerges from the heart. The heart is also what God looks at when He is assessing our faithfulness, and it is with the heart alone that we can come to love and glorify God. What does that mean? It means embodying delight for the commands of God and conforming to them: obeying them from the inside-out. God desires no less than that. How is this done? It is done through diligently (and carefully) assessing our own inward thoughts and motives in light of Scripture, and trusting the Spirit to conform us to His commands as we strive towards obedience (like Paul). We have looked so far at four reasons to make this the great business of our lives: keeping our hearts is how we (1) bring God glory in our lives, (2) avoid hypocrisy and much wickedness, (3) have beautiful witness of Christ to the world, and (4) can have true assurance and comfort in life. Now we have two more reasons left: (5) the improvement of our abiding graces (bearing more fruit) and (6) stability in times of temptation. Yes, keeping the heart is the true mark of the saved. And it is growing in this keeping that is evident in all who love God: in fact, it is how we love God! Let us then, with great sobriety and reverence, endeavour to keep our hearts with all diligence and care, for no greater undertaking can ever be done by us than being sincere and constant in this work.
The improvement of our graces depends on the keeping of our hearts. I never knew grace to thrive in a careless soul. The habits and roots of grace are planted in the heart; and the deeper they are rooted there, the more flourishing grace is. In Eph. 3:17, we read of being “rooted” in grace; grace in the heart is the root of every gracious word in the mouth, and of every holy work in the hand. It is true, Christ is the root of a Christian, but Christ is the originating root, and grace a root originated, planted, and influenced by Christ; accordingly, as this thrives under divine influences, the acts of grace are more or less fruitful or vigorous. Now, in a heart not kept with care and diligence, these fructifying influences are stopped and cut off—multitudes of vanities break in upon it, and devour its strength; the heart is, as it were, the inclosure, in which multitudes of thoughts are fed every day; a gracious heart, diligently kept, feeds many precious thoughts of God in a day. “How precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.” And as the gracious heart nourishes them, so they refresh and feast the heart. “My soul is filled as with marrow and fatness while I think upon thee,” &c. But in the disregarded heart, multitudes of vain and foolish thoughts are perpetually working, and drive out those spiritual thoughts of God by which the soul should be refreshed. Besides, the careless heart profits nothing by any duty or ordinance it performs or attends upon, and yet these are the conduits of heaven, whence grace is watered and made fruitful. A man may go with a heedless spirit from ordinance to ordinance, abide all his days under the choicest teaching, and yet never be improved by them; for heart-neglect is a leak in the bottom—no heavenly influences, however rich, abide in that soul. When the seed falls upon the heart that lies open and common, like the highway, free for all passengers, the fowls come and devour it. Alas! it is not enough to hear, unless we take heed how we hear; a man may pray, and never be the better, unless he watch unto prayer. In a word, all means are blessed to the improvement of grace, according to the care and strictness we use in keeping our hearts in them.
What Flavel is teaching about the heart is that keeping it fixed on God leads to our lives being lived out graciously to others. By “graces” it is meant growing ourselves as conduits of God’s grace to others. Such a life increases in acts of service and conducts itself in such a way that it thinks of others before themselves. In other words, “the improvement of our graces” refers to exuding a self-sacrificial disposition from the heart, whereby our every thought, word, and action manifests itself in love of God principally, from which we love others above our own selves. It is increasing in the manifestation of God’s grace, bearing the marks of God’s work on our lives in a way that cannot be missed. Christ is the one who roots us in this grace, even as His call on our lives is to self-denial: “If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23 HCSB). In keeping the heart, then, a believer grows in graciousness towards others from the inside-out, and this graciousness is rooted in Christ and in our service to Him. In fact, it is part and parcel with His call on our lives. All who are saved grow in this way. And such growth produces eternal fruit from the heart in increasing measure! Growing in these graces leads to growing in every area of the Christian life (such growth becomes our dominating disposition). It is such that, for believers persisting in keeping the heart, by God’s grace, He will look gladly upon the fruit of our lives, and say, “Well done, good and faithful slave! You were faithful over a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Share your master’s joy!” (Matt. 25:23).
If growing in the graces of the Christian life leads to fruitfulness and the love of God, then a heart not kept is a heart starved in its production of fruit. Grace is the channel through which we bear fruit, and our growing in these graces is what God uses for its production. When that is cut off, we are cut off, and we will be starved of fruit: “Now, in a heart not kept with care and diligence, these fructifying influences are stopped and cut off—multitudes of vanities break in upon it, and devour its strength.” Such a heart becomes filled with vanity and worthless things that pry it away from growing in the graces and favor of God. Such a heart is dry like a desert, and hardened like stone, “for heart-neglect is a leak in the bottom—no heavenly influences, however rich, abide in that soul.” It is as the seed that was cast on hard ground and devoured by every wicked and vile thing. Yet, if we are saved, then this will not describe our hearts. Perhaps the believer’s heart can be sick and somewhat neglected, but it cannot be devoid of fruit, for fruit is the mark and evidence of the saved. Rather, the saved will increasingly pursue keeping their hearts. So, keep your hearts and feast upon the truth of God with your hearts as the very light and sustenance of life! Then you can say with the psalmist, “My soul is filled as with marrow and fatness while I think upon thee.” Keep your hearts, then, that you may also grow in God’s grace.
The stability of our souls in the hour of temptation depends upon the care we exercise in keeping our hearts. The careless heart is an easy prey to Satan in the hour of temptation; his principal batteries are raised against the heart; if he wins that he wins all, for it commands the whole man: and alas! how easy a conquest is a neglected heart! It is not more difficult to surprise such a heart, than for an enemy to enter that city whose gates are open and unguarded. It is the watchful heart that discovers and suppresses the temptation before it comes to its strength. Divines observe this to be the method in which temptations are ripened and brought to their full strength. There is the irritation of the object, or that power it has to provoke our corrupt nature; which is either done by the real presence of the object, or by speculation when the object (though absent) is held out by the imagination before the soul. Then follows the motion of the appetite, which is provoked by the fancy representing it as a sensual good. Then there is a consultation in the mind about the best means of accomplishing it. Next follows the election, or choice of the will. And lastly, the desire, or full engagement of the will to it. All this may be done in a few minutes, for the debates of the soul are quick and soon ended: when it comes thus far, the heart is won, Satan hath entered victoriously and displayed his colors upon the walls of that royal fort; but, had the heart been well guarded at first, it had never come to this—the temptation had been stopped in the first or second act. And indeed there it is stopped easily; for it is in the motion of a soul tempted to sin, as in the motion of a stone falling from the brow of a hill—it is easily stopped at first, but when once it is get in motion “it acquires strength by descending.” Therefore it is the greatest wisdom to observe the first motions of the heart, to check and stop sin there. The motions of sin are weakest at first; a little care and watchfulness may prevent much mischief now; the careless heart not heeding this, is brought within the power of temptation, as the Syrians were brought blindfold into the midst of Samaria, before they knew where they were.
What of temptation? Whatever draws your heart away from God is an idol in your life. And an unkept heart is easy prey for the devil, who, with little effort, overcomes it. “It is not more difficult to surprise such a heart, than for an enemy to enter that city whose gates are open and unguarded. It is the watchful heart that discovers and suppresses the temptation before it comes to its strength.” The Bible describes this heart activity as “taking every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 2:5b), for the realm of the heart is the decision-making and will. When we come to entertain wicked thoughts, we show delight in what is evil, willing it from our hearts. And it is when our heart has already been captivated by that evil that it is manifested in our decision making, both in our choice to entertain it (leading to more evil) and in our choice to act upon it. For a heart after God is a wellspring of life, but a heart fixed in pursuing evil is only a stagnant pool that brings death to all who drink from it. The heart is engaged at every instance of temptation: we decide to either reject temptation or to follow through with it with our heart.
Notice three categories of people and their hearts: the unbeliever, the neglected heart of a weak believer, and the believer whose heart is kept. The unbeliever continues in unrepentant sin, showing no evidence of a changed heart. Paul describes this heart, pointing out many of its idols:
Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or anyone practicing homosexuality, no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God’s kingdom. And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Cor. 6:9-11 HCSB).
Notice that, rather than just sometimes “giving in” to these sins and then repenting of them, Paul describes the state of the unsaved as characterized by those sins. They not only sin, but they become the embodiment of those sins, so as to be called by them. Sin is what they are, and there is no repentance (turning away from sin) in their hearts. In contrast, the saved are described as “some of you used to be like this.” The saved are characterized by repentance: keeping their hearts in godliness (the degree is either neglected or kept). Unbelievers do not keep their hearts, but believers do, so as to repent and resist all evil. John said,
No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. . . . No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:6, 9-10 ESV).
Making a practice of sinning marks unbelief. A believer, in contrast, laments their sin, repents, and turns to Christ. In other words, they grow in keeping their hearts fixed on God. And it is in this keeping that we also grow in righteousness, which is love for God and proof of saving faith.
Keeping the heart thus makes us conduits of God’s grace and guards us in times of temptation. All together, these six reasons count as incontrovertible evidence that the keeping of the heart is truly the highest and chief duty of the believer. For our whole duty to God is kept in doing so. I pray that this has been learning for you that is life-changing: that you will make keeping your heart your highest and chief business to God. There is everything to gain if you do, and all to lose if you do not. We stand here at the precipice of eternity: those who reject God reject Him also with their hearts, but those called by Him are diligent to keep their hearts. Decide this day who you will serve! Either God or the lusts and cares of this life. You cannot choose both. Do not be deceived, for Jesus said, “No one can be a slave of two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot be slaves of God and of money” (Matt. 6:24; the word for “money” is a word that refers to all the desires of one’s heart and is not at all exclusive to money). Submit your desires to Him and live!
Next time we will be beginning the first of twelve seasons of the heart.