Guarding the Heart and Mind
Philippians 4:6-7 NLT
“…Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”
This is a very familiar scripture verse, but I picked this translation to bring to light a few aspects.
1. “Tell God what you need…” That should go without saying for us Christians, but we are all guilty of trying to work out things on our own. Don’t skip this important aspect, everything else hinges on this one concept.
2. “Thank Him for what He has done.” Don’t beg God, when you have asked, just begin to thank Him for answering prayer and for the present petition that you have brought to Him. He respects the fact that you are leaving your needs with Him and you are giving Him time and space to work.
3. When those two items are accomplished; “Then you will experience God’s peace…” After you have completed steps one and two, expect peace to step in. I did not say that you would get an immediate resolution to your problem. What I did say is, if you have done steps one and two, He would provide the peace to wait on Him.
4. God’s peace is supernatural; This simple fact is, God’s peace cannot be explained per se, it has to be experienced. We can have His peace when craziness is going on around us, but we feel unusually calm. We can have peace when things are going wrong, terribly wrong, because His peace says to us, this is not a setback, this is just a lull before the miracle.
5. “His peace will guard your hearts…” Paul knew that the heart needed to be protected because the essence of life comes through the spiritual heart or the center of who we are. To give you insight; when you speak candidly, typically it comes from what is in your heart. When you act with conviction, it is typically because of what is stored in your heart. Jesus said that from the heart the mouth speaks. Let His peace guard your heart after you have given all your cares to Him.
6. His peace will guard your mind. Paul included the mind in this transformation because the mind can be tainted and stirred. Thoughts come into our mind that say, “the situation that is going wrong in your life is irreversible, impossible.” Then you refer to the peace of God that says, “God can do anything.” Thoughts in your mind say, “I need to try and fix this on my own.” Then you refer to the peace of God that says, “let go of it, let God do something supernatural that you will not even be able to explain when it is over.”
Prayer:
Father, we give all our worries, fear, distresses, and troubles to You. Thank You for always answering, thank You for caring, loving, protecting, healing, restoring, and lifting us. Thank You for the peace that transcends all understanding, for the peace is in the middle of the storms of life. Thank You for raising up the valleys and bringing down the mountains that stand before us. Thank you for making the crooked places straight, Thank You for guarding our hearts and minds.