"Get Out of My Garden"

Prov 4:23 Keep your heart with all diligence,For out of it spring the issues of life. NKJV

Solomon admonishes us to guard our heart for out of it flows the issues of life. Why?

* Most of your issues don't come from the devil, they come from you.

* If you let hell get in your life, then you will have hell in your life.

* Everything that comes into our life comes as seed, if we allow the seed of unforgiveness, frustration, bitterness, fear to get into our heart then our lives will be encompassed with the fruit of what we allowed in.

* Adam was given the responsibility of guarding the garden, He had victory in every arena of his life, it was a perfect place until he allowed the serpent to come into his garden. I think it is interesting that after Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, she handed it to Adam, which tells me he was there all the time. He was not guarding his garden.

* It is not our wives responsibility to guard the atmosphere of our home. We need men to become the doorkeepers of our homes. If you don't want it in your lives, don't let it in your home. Paul tells us don't give place to the devil (not even a peep hole).

* If a robber wants to break into your house all he needs is an opening. Once he is inside he has access to any room in your house. Spiritually speaking when we allow the robber to have access in our lives through any opening, he can wreak in any area of our life.

* Divorce is not the result of a big thing most of the time, it is the results of a seed (something small) such as lack of time spent together, loss of respect for each other, not putting God first in your home). A criminal is not the result of something but but a person who is the product of seeds that were sown in his childhood.

* The word heart in the Hebrew is from a root word that is a picture of a garden. The writer is saying guard your garden for out of it flows the issues or circumstances of your life. We reap what we sow. What you allow in as a seed will produce fruit in your life.

* I am not a garbage dump for you to pour all your negativity and gossip into. I remember when me and my wife were counseling a couple and they began to bring an accusation against a leader, my wife slammed her hand down on the table and said "Not in my house". Some of you need to do this!

* Your outer world is a mirror of your inner world. In a book titled "The Tipping Point", the author explains how to lower crime in a city. He explains that gangs are attracted and migrate towards areas where the grass is unkempt, there is trash, windows broken... The reason he explains this happens is because the gangs assume that because of the appearance of the properties and homes that no one cares and that no one is in charge.

If you don't take charge of your garden someone else will. Monitor what you are allowing in your heart (also mind). If you let trash in, then you will have trash out. Jesus said that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

What have you allowed in your garden?

What issues are you dealing with as a result of not guarding your heart and mind.

Who have you given your ears to? What you hear, determines where you will end up in life.

Is your life unorganized on the outside because your inner world is unorganized?

Ask God to uproot everything in your heart that has caused your issues. Ask Him to forgive you of allowing satan into your garden, and to give you a new garden (Psalms 51).

Blessings,
Craig