Proverbs to Live By – Keep Your Heart With Diligence

“Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” Proverbs 4:23 (KJV).

I chose to use the King James Version of Proverbs 4:23, for that is the version from which I memorized the verse when I was quite young.  The New English version renders it “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”  Eugene H. Peterson’s The Message Bible states: “Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that’s where life starts.”  Heart in Proverbs (and, indeed, throughout the Bible) refers to the center of one’s inner life.  “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7, KJV). Jeremiah wrote:  “the heart is deceitful above all things” (17:9), but he also said, “And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God:  for they shall return unto me with their whole heart” (Jeremiah 24:7).  And in the Beatitudes, Jesus taught us, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).  Paul knew that with the heart a person came to salvation: “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:10, KJV).  It is no wonder, then, that the writer of Proverbs urged that we keep the heart with all vigilance (or diligence), for from it spring the issues of life, among which are the conviction to be saved from sin, the faith to turn to Jesus for forgiveness and salvation, and the knowledge to listen to and follow God in conduct of life.  Ezekiel substantiated the result of repentance and turning to God, saying He would : “make you a new heart and a new spirit” (Ezekiel 18:31).

We are to keep our heart “with all vigilance”—or “with all diligence.”  To keep vigil is to set a guard, to keep watch, to be awake and aware.  It was a common practice in biblical times to have a watchtower at city gates to which guards were assigned to keep watch over the city and to allow only those with authentic passes to enter.  Likewise, a vigil was set over fields to keep marauders from the harvest.  We’re familiar in our day with identification badges, pass codes, and even guards at places that faithfully check credentials.  Diligence is akin to vigilance, with the added idea of being persistent, steady and exerting effort.  The New International Version translates Proverbs 4:23:  “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”  If we allow the wellspring of our being to be polluted, the contamination will spread and the appetites we thought were under control will produce wrong ways of thinking and acting.  In his comments on Proverbs 4:23, Dr. Warren W. Wiersbe notes:  “The Bible warns us to avoid a double heart (Psalm 12:2), a hard heart (Proverbs 28:14), a proud heart (Proverbs 21:4), an unbelieving heart (Hebrews 3:12), a cold heart (Matthew 24:12), and an unclean heart (Psalm 51:10).  And this prayer comes from Psalm 139:23: “Search me, O God, and know my heart.” [The Wiersbe Bible Commentary, OT. Colorado Springs: Cook, 2007, p. 1065].  

J. Edwin Orr used the words form Psalm 139:23 as the basis of his hymn with these words which are a prayer:  “Search me, O God, and know my heart today;/Try me, O Savior, know my thoughts, I pray./See if there be some wicked way in me;/Cleanse me from ev’ry sin and set me free.”  As we set a vigil over our heart, it would be wise to remember Orr’s words and the tune by Edward J. Hopkins that accompanies the words and sing them daily as our sincere prayer.

Post-Resurrection Appearances of Jesus: To Disciples with Thomas Present

“Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails, and place my hand into His side, I will never believe.’ Eight days later His disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then He said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.’ Thomas answered Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’”-John 21:24-29 (ESV).

John is the only one of the gospel writers who records the story of what we have termed “Doubting Thomas.” But when we think about it, Thomas was not different from others of the disciples, for when Mary Magdalene and the other women went to tell the disciples they had seen the risen Lord, they, too, doubted until He had appeared to them and they had seen Him with their own eyes. Because of Thomas’s doubt, and having to see for himself that Jesus was indeed risen from the dead, he precipitated from the Lord a blessing on subsequent disciples, even to us who believe today and to those who will believe after us: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Thomas needed seeing to believe, he thought. Yet when Jesus offered His nail-scarred hands and his rent side for Thomas to touch, the doubting disciple could only cry out with great reverence and belief: “My Lord and my God!” Scholars say that Thomas’s confession is one of the strongest texts in the gospels—or anywhere in the New Testament—to the diety of Jesus Christ. His statement links back to the beginning of John’s gospel when the beloved disciple writes, “”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God..And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth...And from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”(John 1:1-2, 14, 16). There among his friends and fellow disciples, and in the presence of the living Lord, Thomas declared a great faith: “My Lord nad my God!”

We cannot help but wonder why Thomas was not with the ten disciples a week earlier, on the first day of the week—the day of Christ’s resurrection—when He appeared first to the gathered disciples. Was Thomas so despondent he wanted nothing to remind him of the days they traveled about the Judean countryside absorbing all that Jesus said? Were his hopes so crushed that he wanted no reminders of what they hoped for but what seemed terminated by the cruel death on the cross? We can only speculate as to Thomas’s whereabouts or his emotional and spiritual condition. But we do know that solitude feeds self-pity. We need support of friends at times when we are in a deep morass of disappointment or disillusionment. They can often lend the support we need to get us on the right track again. We also should not neglect the gathering of ourselves together for spiritual instruction, worship and fellowship. For whatever reason, Thomas did join the disciples eight days after the resurrection. He was present when Jesus appeared suddenly to the gathered group the second time. The others had kept telling Thomas that they had seen Him alive. And so Didymus, Thomas (both words in Greek mean “twin”) joined the other ten, and perhaps other believers besides the disciples, on the Lord’s Day—the first day of the week—a week after the resurrection. "Shalom! Peace to you!" was Jesus’ greeting to Thomas. Immediately Jesus saw Thomas’s problem—his unbelief. In Hebrews 3:12 we read about such unbelief: “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an eveil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.” And we also read in Hebrews what we as Christians are responsible for doing in helping our fellow believers to avoid the pitfalls of disbelief: “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13, ESV). If we are faithful in our witness and true to the doctrines of Scripture, we can help those who are weak and doubtful, and, as was Thomas when he saw the Lord, we can hear them proclaim convincingly the wonderful declaration: “My Lord and my God!”