Verse of the Day

August 21, 2025

Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. 

Proverbs 4:23 (NLT)
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Guard Your Heart Above All Else

Read the transcript from today's video devotional. 

Have you ever heard of the changing of the guard in England? They pretty much do what's called the changing of the guard, and they protect Buckingham Palace. They protect Saint James Palace. They're not sightseers. They're not just hanging out and watching. They are guarding Buckingham Palace. Why? Because it's incredibly valuable.

What do you think in your life is valuable? The Bible says right here in the verse, guard your heart above all else. It's tremendously important. In the Bible, our heart is really the mission control center that drives and motivates the real you. If you were to find yourself in a closet and someone were to look at the MRI of your heart, your mind, your thinking, and what you do and what you want, they would find the mission control center, your heart, who you really are.

Two Key Truths About Guarding Your Heart

This verse today gives us two tremendous thoughts on what it means to guard the priority, and that's our heart. First of all, he says, guard your heart, for it's important. It says it right there in the verse. Guard your heart. Guard your mind above all else. Now, I don't know about you, but sometimes I'm going through my day and I'm scrolling my phone, watching TV, or I'm doing something and I'm just really not guarding my mind the way I should. Here in this verse, he talks about how important it is. He says above all else, guard your heart. It's a priority. It's absolutely critical.

Secondly, he says, not only guard your heart because it's a priority, but why else? He says right there in the verse, for it, speaking of your heart, determines the course of your life. Guard your heart because it guides your whole life.

Living This Out Daily

Think about that as you live your life at your job and as you look at your personal life. Maybe you have a gym that you go to. Think about your family life. As you think about how you relate to other people in your life- how well do you, how well do I really think about the importance of guarding my mind? This is such a tremendous thing that we look at today as we look at our hearts, because we live in a culture that says, basically, you don't need to guard your heart. You need to guard these things. Just let everything in and the Bible says in Proverbs, the simple man is the person who just lets everything in. Doesn't have any filter, just lets everything come in. The Bible says that you and I are to guard our hearts for from it, from our mindset flow the issues of life.

As we look at this verse, let's guard our hearts because it really does guide our life.

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