As humans, as people, we are always told to guard our hearts. Especially as women, we are told not to lay our hearts out on the line unless we are certain it is the right decision. But how can we be sure if it is the right decision if we can’t put our hearts out there to begin with? “Listen to your heart,” is what I am always told but how can I do that if I have to put up walls around it? Am I missing out on some cool internal phone line from inside the walls? How do I decipher when it is okay and when it is not, who it is okay to put my entirety into and who is not?
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. - Proverbs 17:17
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. . .And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. - excerpts from 1 Corinthians 13:4-13
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. - John ffection15:12-13
'Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD. - Leviticus 19:18
Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs. – Proverbs 10:12
Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends. – Proverbs 17:9
We recognize a lot of these verses because nine times out of ten a person would agree that love is the most important thing to man. Well what is love? Love is a strong positive emotion of regard and affection. According to my MacArthur Study Bible, (btw an awesome bible well worth the cost) “affection literally refers to the internal organs, which is the part of the body that reacts to intense emotion. It became the strongest Greek word to express compassionate love—a love that involves one’s entire being” (notes on Philippians 1:8). One’s entire being! Hello! Take that as you may but as a part of your entire being there is your heart! With that in mind, how in the world do we expect to fulfill God’s commands on love if we have to worry about guarding our hearts and putting up walls? Well I have good news for you!
Philippians 4:7 says "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
This is our answer! This is how great and wonderful our Lord is! He tells us to love and the world says “Wait! BE CAREFUL! Don’t put yourself in the way of a heart break,” but God steps in and says “I have taken care of it! Do not be afraid of your heart being broken! I am guarding it and therefore it is in not just in good hands but in the hands of the best!” I don’t know about you but this is incredible news to me! It is something to get excited about! So what does this mean exactly… for me, this means that those friends over there who have hurt me in the past, the ones everyone keeps telling me to just forget about, I am still going to love them will the entirety of my heart because I know that God is guarding it. I am free from listening to everyone tell me to be careful and to forget about them. I am blessed enough to get to love them with all that’s in me, and my God is not going to let me down.
So this is just something that God has laid on my heart here lately so I thought I would share :) Have a great day in the Lord!
