Guard Your Heart

Mark Dunagan
09/10/17 - Sunday Evening

Guard Your Heart

What Is Going to Go Right Today?

• What great things am I going to do today? Rather than, “What is going to go wrong today?” What interesting and new people will I meet? What conversations will I have with others? How will God use me today? 2 Timothy 2:21.

Keep Your Head Up Out of the Rut

• Instead of keeping your head down and your mind in mundane tasks, look up and around you. What needs to be said right now? What conversations are going on around me? Who is around me, and how do they look? Do they look happy or sad? Upbeat or discouraged?  Hurting? Why am I here at this specific time and in this specific place? Someone near to you needs help – look around: Galatians 6:10

Count Your Blessings

• Count your blessings, for they are running over: “Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure – pressed down shaken together, and running over” (Luke 6:38). “But I have received everything in full and have an abundance; I am amply supplied… And my God will supply all your needs” (Philippians 4:18-19).
• I am saved. God loves me (Romans 8:28-32).

Live With No Regrets

• In the years ahead I will have wished that I would have trusted God’s advice and abstained from worrying and being angry. I will wish that I would have spent my time choosing to be happy and content.
• Do I really want to look back on a life in which I was constantly brooding and in a dark mood? In which I was frequently fearful about the future, looking for the worst in circumstances or others? 

Become More Like Christ, Not More Like Yourself

“Neither Oscar nor Lou has changed much; they have simply, as Alexandra said of them long ago, grown to be more and more like themselves” (O Pioneers! Willa Cather, p. 67).

This quote really caught my attention. Am I growing more and more like myself over the years, or am I growing more and more like Christ? More and more like a typical man of my country or generation, or more and more like Christ? More and more like ourselves is not necessarily a good thing, because we can become more and more cautious, more and more fearful, more and more set in our ways, more and more negative or resentful, or more and more anti-social, more and more timid, more and more lazy or uninvolved. If you really want to know, what the real you looks like, just ask people to say the first word that comes to their mind when they think of you. So am I becoming more and more like me, or more and more like Jesus? 

• “But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ” (Ephesians 4:15).

My Head Belongs to Me

• “Watch over your heart with all diligence” (Proverbs 4:23).
• “Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit” (2 Corinthians 7:1).
• “Have this attitude in ourselves which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).
• “If there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things” (Philippians 4:8).
• “Set your mind on things above” (Colossians 3:2).
• It is my mind, it does not belong to Satan, the world or anyone else. I am the strongest influence in my head.
• I can control what and how I think: 2 Corinthians 10:3-5  “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ”. No thoughts are allowed to remain for long in my head which are not pleasing to Jesus. No thoughts that violate or contradict His teachings are tolerated. 

Where I Am Right Now

• I am alive, I am not dead and lost forever. I am not separated eternally from God as multitudes are in the afterlife with no hope of salvation. I am not suffering so much that just a drop of water would be relished. Even on the toughest day of my life, my most difficult day ever, I still get to come home and fall asleep in a comfortable bed. Even after a hard and long day, I know that this day will eventually come to an end and tomorrow will bring some relief: 1 Thessalonians 4:13;  Luke 16:19ff
• Everything I do matters: Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
• Others are watching me.
• I am making a difference.
• I have talents that the kingdom of God needs: Ephesians 4:16
• I am rich: 1 Timothy 6:7-8
• I have been given so many second and undeserved chances. God must really want me saved: 2 Peter 3:9
• Remember all the problems that you don’t have.
• I am no longer stumbling in the darkness and living by trial and error.
• Remember all the progress you have made.
• Remember all the sins that are not tempting to you. The actual list of things that really are tempting to each one of us, is a very short list. I am far from a hopeless case.
• So many of my worries are first world problems.
• Make a list of everything that has gone right in your life. There have been so many times that the worst did not happen.
• I have been delivered from so many pitfalls. God has been watching out for me.
• If I am married, someone, out of all the people on the planet, selected me as their mate for a life-time. Wow!
• I have a wonderful spiritually family that surrounds me with love and care. I am not alone. I have a strong support group that will help me make it through thick and thin: Mark 10:29-30.
• In living the Christian life, I no longer worry about things catching up to me from my past: Proverbs 28:1 “The wicked flee when no one is pursuing”. I don’t worry about what I did last weekend. I know that I will reap from all the good that I am attempting to sow (Galatians 6:7-9).
• I really live in a blessed time. We are surrounded by so many things that make our lives comfortable, which give us more time to share the gospel and help others.

The Priceless Knowledge and Wisdom You Have

• I have the answers to the really big and important questions of life. For example, I know who I am. I know why I am here on this planet. I know where it all came from. I know my purpose for existing. I know where happiness is found. I know what will not make me happy.
• I know the truth: John 8:32
• I clearly know my tasks as a citizen, member of the church and a father. I know exactly what will make a marriage work and what will undermine its happiness. 
• I clearly know the difference between good and evil (Hebrews 5:14).
• I know what is true, what is real, what will last, and what happens after death.

Our Really Bright Future

• “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).
• “To obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and reserved in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:4).
• The worst it will get for me is the bad things that happen in this life.
• The glory days for me are not in the distant past, in High School or College, but rather, the glory days are ahead of me.
• I am growing stronger each and every day: 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.

Mark Dunagan | mdunagan@frontier.net
Beaverton Church of Christ | 503-644-9017
www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net