Heart Keepers 04 030614

Heart Keepers 04

4.  Imposing strong engagements upon ourselves to walk more carefully with God and avoid the occasions whererby the heart may be induced to sin.

Most of us know where danger lies.  We know, or should know, what tempts us and where we are weak.  Flavel makes the point here that we have to set clear and sound boundaries for ourselves if we indeed want to keep our hearts.

Knowing what "engagements" we need to set is critical and if more subtle than we think.  I can think of no better example that TV as a place where we need to engage ourselves to greater caution.  It is so easy to become numb to the world and its philosophy than TV.

We used to watch a detective show in which there was some romatic tension between a female detective and a writer of mysteries.  All was well until we the two main characters had begun sleeping together in the same house as the writers teenage daughter.

Even though there were no graphic love scenes we became concerned that we had not been concerned about the "fornication" that was implied by the show.  Here we were watching a show where sin was not only taking place but being celebrated as a good thing and we had missed that somehow.

Well, we had to set a boundary.  Why?  Because we had been so enamoured with the show that we were allowing the blatant sin to go unaddressed.  In being fans we were, in the privacy of our own home, somehow endorsing the illicit relationship between the two characters.  Not being sensitive to this, being so slow to be convicted by this concerned us for our hearts and how they had been numbed or even hardened to what we were watching.

Can you see Flavel's point in this?  We can not affort to allow our hearts, or consciences for that matter, to become numb or hardened.  We need sensitive hearts and consciences so we may not be led into heart sins.

OK, it may seem hokey but the question is, "Would I be doing this if Jesus was with me?"  What you would n't do in His physica resence we shouldn't do period.  It may seem sillly but that's a very simple way to impose upon your heart that which will keep your heart.