Protect the Control Center!

Proverbs 4

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, October 6.

The heart is the control center of your life. I’m not talking about your physical heart, which pumps blood throughout your body; I’m talking about your spiritual heart; the one that Jesus referenced when He described Himself as being, “gentle and humble in heart” (Matthew 11:29). Whoever, or whatever, is in control of your heart determines what you are like, and what you think, say, and do. Solomon knows the importance of protecting the control room of your life, so he instructed his students in Proverbs 4:23-27:

Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you a deceitful mouth and put devious speech far from you. Let your eyes look directly ahead and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. Watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right nor to the left; turn your foot from evil.

As a child of the 1970s, I remember the threat of the Cold War, and the movies inspired by that era of fear, which emphasized the insanity of the defense doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). A popular plot of that time was the hostile takeover of the control room of a nuclear missile silo; to initiate a catastrophic war, causing great destruction and mass chaos. Honestly, this was not an original plot; it is the ancient strategy of Satan to seize the control center of a person’s life, so that he can use that person as a vessel of evil – “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10a).

Seize the moment and apply the wisdom of Proverbs 4: protect the control center of your life! Jesus desires to rule from the throne of your heart, so that, you “may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10b). It is from your heart that all good things flow (Luke 6:45).