E419: Your Biggest Project: Protecting Your Heart

Benjamin Lee (0:00): Hello, and welcome to the I Can Do podcast with Benjamin Lee. We're here to talk about tips and strategies to have an I Can Do mindset. Life is what you put into it. Get the most you can. Here's your host, Benjamin Lee.

Unknown Speaker (0:23): Your biggest project, my biggest project, and focus is to guard our hearts. Solomon wrote in Proverbs chapter four, verse 23, Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life. When Solomon penned these words, he was not giving abstract advice. No, he was revealing one of the greatest spiritual truths anyone could ever learn. Yet tragically, it became the very wisdom he would later ignore.

Unknown Speaker (1:01): The wisest man ever to live would ignore this wisdom. What about us? No one began with greater advantages than Solomon. God blessed him with extraordinary wisdom, unimaginable wealth, peace throughout his kingdom, and even spoke directly to him more than once. Yet the inspired record in first Kings chapter 11, you read that entire chapter, at least the first half of it, tell us that when Solomon was owed, his wives turned his heart away after other gods.

Unknown Speaker (1:38): The problem was never that Solomon lacked knowledge. The problem was that he stopped guarding the very place where every decision begins, the heart. Our biggest project is to guard and protect our hearts. Guarding the heart, it is not a one time event. It's a daily responsibility.

Unknown Speaker (2:04): Paul instructed Christians to test yourselves, to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves. In two Corinthians 13 and verse number five. Every day we must honestly ask some difficult questions to get to the heart of the matter. Right?

Unknown Speaker (2:21): Why am I attracted to this opportunity? Another question we could ask may be, what temptation could accompany this decision if I go down this path? Am I slowly becoming comfortable with something that God has already warned against? What's my way of escape? We know that God provides a way of escape when we are tempted according to first Corinthians chapter 10 verses twelve and thirteen.

Unknown Speaker (2:50): You see, this kind of examination requires humility because we're often poor judges of ourselves. It also requires repentance when necessary when we discover sin, confession when we have wandered, and accountability from faithful brethren who love us enough to tell us the truth. One wonders who could correct who could have corrected Solomon. I think about King David. David had Nathan to come to him and tell him, you are the man.

Unknown Speaker (3:21): But what about Solomon? As his compromises multiplied throughout the years, who could go to Solomon? Or who would he even allow to go to him or come to him? You see, his wealth increased, his building projects expanded, his political alliances flourished, yet his heart quietly drifted farther and farther away from God. When he was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods.

Unknown Speaker (3:56): The tragedy, it didn't happen overnight. Solomon did not marry hundreds of foreign wives in a single day. His heart was carried away one compromise at a time. Eventually, his love for these relationships surpassed his loyalty to the Lord. David, King David, his father, though imperfect, continually returned to God through repentance.

Unknown Speaker (4:22): Solomon, however, increasingly clung to the very things that were pulling him away from God. Perhaps for us, the clearest test of whether we are guarding our hearts is this question, who gets the final say? When difficult decisions arise, do we submit to God's wisdom? Do we allow our emotions or our culture or family or even our own reasoning to overrule what God has already told us? Who gets the final say?

Unknown Speaker (5:01): That's a very important question. Another revealing question concerns our priorities. Solomon was constantly building. Read Ecclesiastes chapter two verses five through nine. He has gardens, he has houses, treasures, possessions, you name it.

Unknown Speaker (5:19): First Kings chapter 11, verses one, two, and three records his ever growing household. But none of these projects were able to strengthen the one thing that mattered the most, his heart. He built cities, but he neglected his faith. He protected his kingdom, but failed to protect his character. We can fall into that same trap.

Unknown Speaker (5:46): We can build our social media platforms but fail to protect our hearts. We can build our 401s but fail protect our hearts and provide it what it needs, the very word of God. That danger is real for us today. We become experts in so many things. We can build our careers and savings accounts and reputations and hobbies and possessions while neglecting the very things that matter the most: our hearts, our marriages, our families, our service in the kingdom, and our walk with God.

Unknown Speaker (6:26): None of those accomplishments, the careers, the savings accounts, the reputations, the hobbies, none of those can substitute for a heart that remains fully devoted to the Lord. You see, my biggest project and your biggest project is guarding our hearts. How are you doing with that project?