Prov 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. NIV
GUARD YOUR HEART!!! There seems to be such an alarming focus most preachers take with this verse. What gets in you will come out of you so BEWARE!!!
Your heart is taking control of your life and this should be a good and amazing thing. Your heart has such incredible capacity to produce amazing things that God calls it the WELLSPRING OF LIFE not death. Guard your heart! For sure guard your heart but let’s read it for what it is saying here!
This Hebrew phrase literally translates, “from the heart are the outflowings or outgoings of life.” Most translations say, “For from it are the springs of life.” The picture is that your heart is like a stream that continually flows out to influence people around you that you come in contact with.
What gets in you can’t help but come out of you by design!
GOD’S PRESENCE produces Shalom (the peace of God)! GOD’S WORD produces life & strength! GOD’S GOODNESS produces compassion and kindness!
There is a fountain springing up within you that influences the world around you.
John 4:13-14 Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again,but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."
God’s abilities can be awakened within you causing your world to flourish amazingly!
Last week I heard about a pretty young guy who had become a multimillionaire and then lost everything. He lost $50 million over the course of 18 months. Somehow over the next year he actually was able to make it all back. Do you know why? Because they can take everything away from you except for who you are.
Even if you lose everything you have, you still have what you had when you created it all in the first place. Everything you needed before was inside you and it still exists today – and – not only do you have everything you had but you also have everything you learned. So you are more than you used to be and they can’t take who you are away from you!
God created you to be the kind of person that can be put into any situation, any relationship, any organization, etc and things begin to flourish! If you drop a mentos into Diet Dr. Pepper you get an incredible reaction that will get your attention. You have a design that very naturally reacts to problems and to chaos. The more you allow God to fill you with his wisdom and his revelation the more your reaction will be that which releases heaven in the earth.
What gets in you can’t help but come out of you by design!
GP2RL Action Point:
Purpose to rehearse John 4:13-14 every day this week inviting God to flow into and out of your life more and more.
DISCUSSION GUIDE FOR COMMUNITY GROUP LEADERS
Click here for a downloadable pdf file of this guide.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. Share a time when your heart seemed to take control of your life and something wonderful resulted.
2. Share a time when your heart seemed to take control of your life and something painful resulted.
Your heart has the capacity to take complete control of your life both good and bad. This is why the Bible describes the heart as the wellspring of life.
Prov 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. NIV
Your heart has a powerful mission and your heart has a powerful mood. Weighing just ½ of a pound it pumps enough blood to fill 81 tanker trucks, which is 650k gallons, every year. As your heart fulfills it’s physical mission it will beat more than 36,000,000 times this year alone! At age 70 your heart will have beaten 2.5 billion times.
Just as your heart has this amazing physical mission it also has an amazing emotional mission. Family accomplishments can cause us to stand and celebrate with enthusiasm. Being cut off in traffic can cause us to react emotionally before really thinking about it logically.
God designed us with the capacity of expression from the heart that moves us beyond all understanding. This is why the heart is so central to our pursuit of God.
John 4:13-14 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
There is a fountain springing up within you that influences the world around you.
Jesus is constantly trying to deal with what’s on the inside because it positions us to deal effectively with what’s going on in world around us
Ps 119:11 Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You! NKJV
DISCUSSION QUESTION:
3. Share a verse that you have purposed to hide in your heart as you walked out a difficult time of life.
4. What did you do to focus on this verse and what are some ways we can actually hide God’s Word in our hearts?
GP2RL: Purpose to rehearse John 4:13-14 every day this week inviting God to flow into and out of your life more and more.
