Some Reasons Why Keeping the Heart Needs to be "The Great Business" of our Lives

For the first two posts in this series, see Keeping the Heart and What the Keeping of the Heart Presupposes and Signifies

Having considered what keeping the heart is, what it means, what it implies, etc. Flavel moves on to ask--why do we need to focus on this? Why is this important? It doesn't take long before you really understand why.

1. Heart-evils are "sins of deeper guilt" than outward sins. If you doubt,

"He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, like one who breaks a dog's neck; he who presents a grain offering, like one who offers pig's blood; he who makes a memorial offering of frankincense, like one who blesses an idol. Isaiah 66:3

Flavel says,

Such is the vileness of mere heart-sins, that the Scriptures sometimes intimate the difficult of pardon for them

Great incentive indeed to keep the heart inclined as it ought to be.

2. It's a sign of the sincerity of our profession.

Most certainly that man who is careless of the frame of his heart, is but a hypocrite in his profession, however eminent he be in the externals of religion.

That's quite the attention-getting idea. Flavel uses Simon Magus and Jehu as his examples for this.

Think of everything Jehu did against the house of Ahab. The great feats he accomplished--and for which God greatly rewarded him. But he took no heed to walk in the ways of the Lord as he did so. And therefore he was a hypocrite and God rejected him (not his work) for it.

Flavel offers this timely comfort,

If any upright soul should hence infer, 'I am a hypocrite too, for many times my heart departs from God in duty; do what I can, yet I cannot hold it close with God;' I answer, the very objection carries in it its own solution. Thou sayest, 'Do what I can, yet i cannot keep my heart with God.' Soul, if thou does what thou canst, thou hast the blessing of an upright, though God sees good to exercise thee under the affliction of a discomposed heart.

Partly through laying up the word in our heart to prevent wayward thoughts, etc.; party in our efforts to engage our heart to God; and party in our asking God to graciously keep us from sin in a duty, we can take heart that we are fighting hypocrisy as we fight "some wildness in [our] thoughts and fancies." It is an evidence of right standing before god if we oppose these thoughts as they arise. Not after they've done damage in our hearts.

If with Hezekiah thou are humbled for the evils of thy heart, thou hast no reason, from those disorders, to question the integrity of it; but to suffer sin to lodge quietly in the heart, to let they heart habitually and without control wander from God, is a sad, a dangerous symptom indeed.

3.

Saints shine as the lights of the world; but whatever lustre and beauty is in their lives, comes from the excellency of their spirits' as the candle within puts lustre upon the lantern in which it shines.

It's out of the heart, after all, that evil thoughts, murders and so on proceed. The converse is true as well, when our hearts are in order, our lives will be as well.

When the heart is up with God, and full of God, how dexterously will he insinuate spiritual discourse, improving every occasion and advantage to some heavenly purpose! Few words then run to waste. And what can be the reason that the discourses and duties of many Christians are become so frothy and unprofitable, their communion both with God and with one another becomes as a dry stalk, but this, their hearts are neglected?

Flavel rightly points out that this is a great measure lost in his time (can't imagine what he'd say about ours), which is "to the unspeakable detriment of religion." He closes this section with a stirring call:

Time was, when Christians conducted [their lives] in such a manner that the world stood gain at them. Their life and language were of a different strain from those of others; their tongues discovered them to be Galileans wherever they came. But now, since vain speculations and fruitless controversies have so much obtained, and heart-work, practical godliness is so much neglected among professors, the case is sadly altered: their discourse is become like other men's ; if they come among you now, they may 'hear every man speak in his own language'. And I have little hope of seeing this evil addressed, and the credit of religion repaired, till Christians do their first works, till they apply again to heart-work: when the salt of heavenly -minded ness is cast into the spring, the streams will run more clear and more sweet.

4. Assurance depends on it. Yes, it's the work of the Spirit to grant assurance, but we must "take pains" with our hearts if we ever attain it in the ordinary way God grants it.

You may expect your comforts upon easier terms, but I am mistaken if ever you enjoy them upon any other: give all diligence; prove yourselves; this is the scriptural method.

(he's so good on this point...so...Puritan) The Spirit testifies to our adoption (which is what assurance consists of) in 2 ways:

The first is objectively--by producing the "graces in our souls" that match the promise, you might say by producing the fruits of the Spirit. You can where He is by the effects of his presence--"in his operations." How you can tell that the Spirit is producing those things without serious searching and watching of the heart doesn't seem possible.

Secondly, the Spirit witnesses to our adoption "by irradiating the soul with a grace discovering light, shining upon his own work." In other words, He shows us that He's working in us.

5. The improvement of our graces, the bearing of fruit depends on our hearts being kept. Fruit isn't borne on a careless soul. As we seek to improve our graces, we have to keep our heart focused properly. Conversely, as we keep our hearts, we shall bear much fruit.

6. Finally, if our hearts are not well-kept, they will be more susceptible to temptation. Satan's "principal batteries are raised against the heart; if he wins that he wins all." As the fortress which is well-guarded is harder to conquer, so is the heart.

it is the greate3st wisdom to observe the first motions of the e heart, to check and stop sin tehre. The motions of sin are weakest at first; a little care and watchfulness may prevent much mischief now.