“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.” Proverbs 4:23-27 

“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” Matthew 5:19

The springs of life flow from the heart. Therefore, we must keep our heart with all vigilance. The word “heart” here refers to the inner life, the mind, thoughts, motives, desires. A pure mind, thoughts, desires leads to a pure life. Our gaze is to be straight ahead, avoiding the lustful distractions that may be to the left or right. God allows us, even as Christians, free will to choose what we allow into our mind and we must, with God’s help, maintain a pure thought life unless we want to fall into sin as many Christians due today with all of the immoral distractions of our society bombarding us.

Philippians 4:8 gives us the method to “keep our hearts”. “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Keeping our thoughts focused straight ahead away from wicked distractions and our mind on holy things will help ensure the holy life that God calls us to.

Matthew tells us that it is from the heart that all manner of wickedness can flow for those who do not keep it properly. We know from Romans that the wages of sin is death. Not eternal death for a Christian but death to a happy, fruitful, excellent life and loss of reward on judgment day. Let us keep the springs of life flowing in the proper direction by watching the path of our feet and the direction of our eyes and the thoughts we allow into our mind and then all our ways will be sure.