All Things Seen & Unseen

Recently we were reading Matt 6.19-21 in our devotions. I was especially challenged by our Lord's words in verse 21: 'For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also'. The cosmic perspective into which this passage fits is the heaven-and-earth milieu (that dominates all of holy Scripture). Jesus' teaching challenges his hearers to assess their attitudes and heart-commitments in the light of heaven.

John Flavel (1627-1691) was a great puritan preacher who, along with more than 2000 other ministers, was turned out of his pulpit in The Great Ejection of 1662 . He famously wrote, Keeping The Heart which is a mastery exposition of Prov 4.23. 'Keep and guard you heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life' (Amp). Like all the Puritan writers his work is dense and doesn't lend itself to easy summarisation. However he opens his short book which can be found here on the internet with these words: The heart of man is his worst part before it is regenerated, and the best afterward; it is the seat of principles, and the fountain of actions. The eye of God is, and the eye of the Christian ought to be principally fixed upon it.   The greatest difficulty in conversion, is to win the heart to God; and the greatest difficulty after conversion, is to keep the heart with God. Here lies the very force and stress of religion;...

Proverbs 4.23 is a key text for reminding us about the centrality of our spiritual hearts. The spiritual heart can be understood as the 'inner person'. Proverbs says, 'Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it flows the issues of life'. Although variously translated the importance of the heart remains clear in all of them. In one of Jesus' sayings, he taught that a person is not defiled by what he eats. What is defiling is what comes out of his mouth from his heart (Mark 7.20). Such things as, 'evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness' and 'All these evil things come from within, and defile the man' (vv21-23).