Last time we started season three on Zion’s trouble (being concerned about the church under persecution). We saw that, regardless of what the church is going through, God is in control. Because of this, hope and victory are on our side.

We are at season three of John Flavel’s book, Keeping the Heart. We have just finished the seasons of prosperity and adversity, looking at some great biblical helps for those times. Season three is called Zion’s Troubles, and it refers to when the church goes through hardship and persecution.

So often, if we were to design the course of our lives, we would want to do things quite differently than what the Father has laid out for us. Yet, if we were endowed with perfect knowledge, if we were perfectly just and good, if we were steadfast in love, unchangingly perfect and immovable in nature, we too would see the great wisdom and forbearance of God. With unwavering patience He carries out His designs.

Last time we looked at the first three helps for the season of adversity: (1) God is orchestrating all for the end of making us holy; (2) while God lovingly disciplines us with affliction, He never takes away His loving kindness; and (3) just as a loving father wants what is best for his children, so the heavenly Father, far perfectly beyond any earthly father, is the one who designs all for our good.

We are continuing our devotionals through John Flavel’s book, Keeping the Heart. We have just finished season 1 on how to keep the heart in times of prosperity. By way of review, keeping the heart refers to the following: Our whole will and understanding is to be loyally conformed and directed to God according to His commandments and Word, which manifests itself in every decision we make.

Flavel has one more consideration for the Christian in the season of prosperity. For the prior six, see the last two devotionals.

Last time we looked at the first three helps for the season of prosperity.

In the last three devotionals, we looked at six reasons why we should make keeping the heart the great business of our lives.

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?

We are continuing our points today on why Christians must make keeping their hearts “the great business of their lives.” Last time, we looked at how keeping our hearts is directly correlated with glorifying God, and how living a life of hypocrisy—where there is no evidence of heart change—is its opposite (like the sin of murder or treason).