Several years ago, as I stood in my Odessa, Texas back yard staring at the pitiful excuse for a hole that I was trying to dig, I remember thinking of Zechariah 7:12, “Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts” (KJV). The people of God in Zechariah’s day had made their hearts as hard as the caliche through which I was trying to dig. Just as my shovel could not penetrate that rock, the words of the prophets could not penetrate the hearts of stubborn Israel.

One of the central themes in the Bible is the importance of keeping one’s heart in such a condition that the truth will always penetrate it. This is so because the heart is the fountain from which all our actions flow. “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life” (Prov. 4:23). “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matt. 15:18-19). Consider these passages that speak of maintaining purity of heart: “Truly God is good to Israel, to such as are pure in heart” (Psa. 73:1). “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8). “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear” (1 Pet. 3:15).

We are cautioned by doctors and nutritionists to watch what we eat so that our blood pumps will remain healthy. We need to do the best we can to care for the bodies God has given us. But more important is the need to keep a close watch on the condition of our “Biblical heart” (the mind; the seat of our affections). Without constant attention to one’s heart condition, a man can reach a point at which his heart becomes so hardened that the truth no longer has any affect. “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame” (Heb. 6:4-6). May we join with David and say, “Create in me a clean heart, O God” (Psa. 51:10).

Eddie Parrish