⏱️ Estimated Reading Time: 2 min read
Guard Your Heart: Biblical Wisdom for Faithful Christian Living
Show Summary
In this episode of Contending for the Word Q&A, Dave Jenkins answers an essential question: What does it mean to guard your heart? Using Proverbs 4:23 as the anchor text, we explore why the heart is the control center of your life—and how what shapes your inner life shapes your walk with God. You’ll learn how to watch your desires, protect your affections, filter your influences, resist sinful thoughts quickly, and fill your heart with God’s truth through Scripture, prayer, worship, and fellowship.
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Episode Notes
Anchor Text
Proverbs 4:23 — “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”
Central Truth
To guard your heart means to watch over your desires, protect your affections, filter your influences, resist sinful thoughts, and fill your inner life with God’s truth.
Five Ways to Guard Your Heart
- Watch your desires. Sin often begins with misplaced desires. Ask: What am I craving? What do I love most? What am I chasing? What do I fear losing?
Key Scripture: James 1:14 - Protect your affections. The heart attaches to what it finds beautiful, comforting, or valuable. Your affections steer your life.
Key Scripture: Matthew 6:21 - Filter your influences. Your heart is shaped by what you allow in—media, friendships, voices you trust, and teachers you follow. Guarding your heart requires wise boundaries.
Key Scripture: Psalm 101:3 - Resist sinful thoughts immediately. Temptation grows in the soil of unchallenged thoughts. Take every thought captive to obey Christ.
Key Scripture: 2 Corinthians 10:5 - Fill your heart with God’s truth. You cannot guard your heart by emptiness—only by fullness. A heart full of Christ has less room for sin.
Key Scripture: Psalm 119:11
Why This Matters
- Sin seeks to distort the heart.
- The world seeks to distract the heart.
- False teaching seeks to deceive the heart.
- Temptation seeks to weaken the heart.
- Above all, guard your heart because Christ has purchased it, renewed it, and made it His dwelling place.
Call to Action
If this episode helped you, please consider subscribing and sharing it with a friend. For more biblical resources, visit Contending for the Word Q&A page at Servants of Grace and at our YouTube.
Stand firm in the Word. Cling to Christ. And guard your heart with His grace and wisdom.
Dave Jenkins is happily married to his wife, Sarah. He is a writer, editor, and speaker living in beautiful Southern Oregon. Dave is a lover of Christ, His people, the Church, and sound theology. He serves as the Executive Director of Servants of Grace Ministries, the Executive Editor of Theology for Life Magazine, the Host and Producer of Equipping You in Grace Podcast, and is a contributor to and producer of Contending for the Word. He is the author of The Word Explored: The Problem of Biblical Illiteracy and What To Do About It (House to House, 2021), The Word Matters: Defending Biblical Authority Against the Spirit of the Age (G3 Press, 2022), and Contentment: The Journey of a Lifetime (Theology for Life, 2024). You can find him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, or read his newsletter. Dave loves to spend time with his wife, going to movies, eating at a nice restaurant, or going out for a round of golf with a good friend. He is also a voracious reader, in particular of Reformed theology, and the Puritans. You will often find him when he’s not busy with ministry reading a pile of the latest books from a wide variety of Christian publishers. Dave received his M.A.R. and M.Div through Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary.
