Stay on Guard
Life moves fast and demands a lot of us. Go to work, take care of the kids, clean the house, support your family, make dinner, shop, take care of the yard, pay your bills, ........ Sound familiar?
We must protect our heart, our mind, and our relationship with God despite all the demands and distractions. We must not let our stressors and our worry invade our mind to a point where it is pushing God out. Our mind is a treasure, we must do all we can to develop and maintain a sound and healthy mind. This requires us to excise our heart and mind with the word of God on a daily basis. This ensures that any old, unhealthy, or ungodly thoughts are pushed our of our mind making room to fill us up with fresh, healthy and positive thoughts. The love of Jesus and the positive thoughts are what we want to fill up our minds.
Keeping our hearts and minds on God also allows him to keep us on the defense. Have you ever felt caught off guard because you allowed someone or something to offend you and the next thing your knew you were mad that He didn't protect you. News Flash: When you become offended and let down your mind and heart's guard you also put a barrier up to not allow God to defend you.
Think of God's protection, His defense as a verb - something that requires movement and action, do not allow your heart and mind to make barriers preventing him from shooting down your enemies and raising the guards to protect us. Submit to Him, take down your barriers and resubmit your issues to God, He hears you and He will come and rescue you. There is no sin in calling out to God when you are utterly overwhelmed. The sin would be turning away from Him to lesser options that will further distract you from your Father.
Psalm 18:2 The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer, my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold, (NIV)
Psalm 118:6 The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? (NIV)
Proverbs 4:23 Guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. (NIV)
