“Above all else, monitor what enters your heart and soul because your soul is the wellspring of your life.”
The Hebrew reads more directly, "Keep your heart with all diligence for with it are all the issues of life." The "heart" in Hebrew also refers to your soul. "The heart is the seat of the soul" as you may have heard it said. I rephrased this verse as noted because I wanted to explicitly express the urgency and passion we must use to properly protect what enters our souls.
Many messages found in popularized culture and "fake news" (aka propaganda) serve to undermine the power of truth and wisdom (the Mind of Christ) in all areas of life. You have heard it said when someone tells you an "un-truth," there will typically be someone who says, that person didn't mean to hurt you, they meant well. However, no matter what that person "meant," they still tried to steer you astray from God by not knowing the truth and talking when they should have stayed quiet. And they proved the Biblical truth of Proverbs 4:23 and Luke 6:45!
“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”
We must monitor what goes in our minds. "The eyes are the windows to the soul." The ears are, too. We must monitor what goes into our soul through all our senses, actually. A person with an evil spirit can touch you and transfer an evil spirit if you are not filled with the Holy Spirit. I'm certainly not saying we must be "OCD" about demons and paranoid about letting people touch us, but we should always be aware of who we allow to speak into our lives. Heck, even though God has made me a prophet, I still encourage the people I give a word to pray about it! Test the spirits! Never be in the habit of just taking somebody, or their word, at face value unless you know them very well.
“But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For anything other than these is from the evil one.”
God wants us to be people of our word. If we are going to expect others to be true to their word, we must be true to ours. We are the Christians, they are not. We are to be the example of Heavenly character within a world full of liars, thieves, murderers, propaganda mongers, and personality-driven hypocrites. We can't be the light to a dark world if we're allowing the dark to put out our light!
Secular news stations may make money off gloom and doom statements and keep pumping out crime, adultery, and murder, but we don't need to feed our minds that stuff when the Word, Prayer time with God, and Christian radio and, movies, and radio are available.
Holiness means to be "called out". Once you're free from the pig sty, why would you go back?
Prayer
Holy Father God, You are my North Star, You are my guiding light, You are the lamp to my feet and light to my path. Thank You for leading me in the way everlasting and empowering me day by day so I can live this life You have called me to live. I thank You for Your grace that set me free from the pig sty. Help me to stay clean from the muck and mire of the world's system. I ask that You would bring the people into my life who need to be here are allow those who are in my life and should not be, to leave. Help me to monitor my Facebook, Snapchat, food intake, music, and shows and movies. I don't want to dishonor or harm myself with worldly garbage anymore. Grant me the heavenly perspective that I require to make the best decisions and help me to guard my heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Show me what I need to get rid of and I know that You will replace those things with the things You want me to have. In Jesus' name, amen.
Many thanks for the great photo to Toa Heftiba for the use of the great photo! https://unsplash.com/@heftiba