Apicontent

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the well­-spring of life. (Proverbs 4:23)

He who trusts in himself is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be kept safe. (Proverbs 28:26)

My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes delight in my ways. (Proverbs 23:26)

On February 14 of each year, we celebrate Valentine’s Day, and stores are filled with a seemingly infinite variety of items that are red, heart-shaped, or carry messages of love—everything from bonbons to boxer shorts. It’s a celebration of the motivations of the heart.

Clearly, the heart is a whole lot more than that incredible machine inside our chests which pumps enough blood in an average lifetime to fill a string of railroad tank cars fifty miles long. In this context, it is the center of our affections, the core of our being; and we recognize its importance. We talk of a good heart, a soft heart, a hard heart, a big heart, a broken heart, a tender heart, a kind heart, an evil heart, and a heart for God.

Wisdom dictates that this center of our feelings and affections be managed well, or it can lead us into big trouble. The Scriptures describe what could be called “spiritual heart disease”—lethal symptoms coming from a heart that is not attuned to God’s law and character.

The most common symptom of this heart disease is illicit relation­ships. If the seat of our feelings/emotions is not guarded, it will lead us into affairs of the heart. We will lust after beauty, wealth, power, perversity, or our neighbor’s spouse. This is why we are to watch over it “with diligence.”

Principle: An unguarded heart will destroy your life and run away with your soul.

We humans have been given three guidance systems—a spirit, a brain, and a heart. The spirit is expressed in the conscience, reason in the brain, and emotions in the heart. It is absolutely essential that power be given to each in this order of priority. A person whose brain gets ahead of his conscience will become an intelligent evildoer, and one whose heart gets ahead of both will become a catastrophe of feelings-directed, immoral foolishness. This is why Proverbs declares it foolhardy to trust your heart. Wisdom is living by spirit-guided reason, regardless of what the heart says.

Principle: The road to destruction meanders through three cities: Heart, Mind, and Spirit… and stays too long in Heart. The road to life goes directly to the Spirit—in the same township as Mind.

The only successful way to live is to surrender one’s heart to God. He made it and promises to give us its desires as a reward for obedience.

Principle: Only the heart surrendered to God realizes its deepest desires; self-managed hearts get broken and break the hearts of others.

[from “Wisdom for the Trenches” by Dr. Larry W. Poland]

Do not join with those who drink too much wine, or gorge themselves on meat; for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags. (Proverbs 23:20- 21)

The late Dr. Armand Nicoli was an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. As he looked back on his lifelong career as a psychiatrist, he noted a striking pattern shift. When he began his career, he says the maladies facing him in his practice dealt a lot with the repression or suppression of impulses. Patients needed to be freed to express themselves and their impulses responsibly. Today, he notes patients suffer from the inability to control the expression of impulses. Most “lack impulse control” and are in bondage to unbridled appetites.

We live and work in a world in which excess is often the norm. Unrestrained anger, sexual addictions, chain-smoking, binge drink­ing, workaholism, bondage to pornography, drug abuse, consumer spending, and, yes, gluttony leading to obesity characterize many. The word orgy describes the excesses we see around us and which tempt us to binge ourselves.

Principle: The one in bondage to repressed impulses is no more a slave than he who is shackled by lack of control over them.

Solomon knew the dangers of unrestrained human impulses. He knew that the character weakness which causes a person to lose impulse control in one area often extends to other areas of excess. So he warned against even associating with those lacking impulse control lest we succumb to the pattern of excess.

Principle: Associating with friends who lack restraint over their appetites exposes us to their contagious virus of excess.

The inevitable link to financial irresponsibility cannot be missed in Solomon’s warning. It’s as if the wise king is saying, “Show me a person who can’t control his eating and drinking, and I’ll show you a person who can’t control his spending.” Bingeing in any area is expensive, but more than the direct cost seems to be the spillover lack of self-control which makes us slaves to financial debt. The pattern eventually “clothes us in rags.”

Principle: If it is true that “a fool and his money are soon parted,” it’s equally true that one who binges on anything else will likely binge on spending and borrowing.

Fascinating, then, that the apostle Paul packages “self-control” in with the fruit of the Spirit of Christ in Galatians 5:22-23. Noteworthy, too, that I can’t stay on a diet or exercise program without conscious reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit within me. I guess only God can override sin’s gravitational pull into excess.

Principle: Financial poverty and bankruptcy begin where lack of control of other impulses leave off.

[from “Wisdom for the Trenches” by Dr. Larry W. Poland]

Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. (Proverbs 4:26)

Ears that hear and eyes that see, the Lord has made them both. (Proverbs 20:12)

It was horrific! A motorcyclist was speeding toward my car at about fifty miles an hour when I first saw him, and there was no place to go to avoid the crash. He hit the brakes, laid the bike down, skidded into my car, and lay there in the street entwined in his crumpled cycle in excruciating pain with a broken ankle. I knelt over him and prayed for his healing. I said over and over to myself and then to the law enforcement officer, “I didn’t see him. I just didn’t see him.”

Seeing eyes are rare in our culture. Oh, I don’t mean the 20/20 measurement your optometrist gives you; I mean eyes that really see. Not only do these eyes record what is viewed, but they are connected to a spiritual process of discernment which sees through and beyond images.

Principle: Without divine illumination, our eyes can never see through and beyond the thick darkness around us.

Non-seeing eyes are common. They are owned by those who look directly at evil and call it “good,” look right at impending disaster and call it “a challenge,” look square on at destruction and call it “a choice,” and look right at a demonic trap and call it a “great opportunity.” Proverbs exhorts us to watch—really see and really level—the paths of our lives. If we do, all our efforts will be firmly successful.

Principle: Failure to give attention to the way we are living is to surrender our destiny to the three enemies of success­: chance, unexpected risk, and unrecognized stupidity.

The Scriptures make it patently clear that God creates vision at two levels. One is involuntary and the other voluntary. God creates “eyes that see” as the Creator of all things. We got the product of that creation when we were born. But God is also the Creator of eyes that really see—that discern, that penetrate, that see beyond, that aren’t subject to distraction or optical illusions. These eyes we get by acknowledging Him, learning from Him, obeying Him, and seeking His view of things.

Principle: No one is so blind as he who will not allow God to enhance and correct his vision.

I hope you can see this.

[from “Wisdom for the Trenches” by Dr. Larry W. Poland]

Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her paths. Many are the victims she has brought down; her slain are a mighty throng. Her house is a highway to the grave, leading down to the chambers of death. (Proverbs 7:25- 27)

For the prostitute reduces you to a loaf of bread, and the adulteress preys upon your very life. (Proverbs 6:26)

Lucifer could make great money in Washington or Hollywood as a “spin doctor.” In fact, some of his agents already do so by playing word games to make a deadly evil sound like a pleasant privilege. The sickest pornography is billed as “adult,” “sophisticated,” or “mature.” Nudity and fornication are harmless “play” as in Playboy or Play­girl, and seduction is elevated to “scoring” in the game of sex.

God has a different view of the person who is involved in sex outside of the covenant bond of marriage. For sure, He doesn’t use words like play or mature in describing them.

Writing to young men, Solomon warns of the promiscuous woman in totally unambiguous terms. He would have said the same things of libertine men if he’d been writing to young women. In his cautions, Solomon warns of “turning hearts” and “straying onto wrong paths.” Legion are the Christians who have viewed themselves as “mature” enough to engage in a little “play” with the opposite sex without con­sequences, and every broken dream and shattered marriage started with an unguarded heart.

Principle: The heart is a person’s spiritual center. If left unguarded, it will be ruptured by demonic darts, not stimulated by Cupid’s arrows.

Four times in thirty-plus years serving leaders in the sex-charged media, I have had to look a brother in Christ in the eyes and say, “Get that other woman out of your life. The Bible says she will reduce you to a loaf of bread.”

For those who did not heed the warning, the picture was not pretty. I had to watch as Solomon’s heavy words—”victims,” “slain,” “high­way to the grave”, and “chambers of death”—settled in on my brothers. I’ve seen bitter spouses, rebellious kids, lost fortunes, destroyed careers, and abandoned faith reduce the best of men to the value of a loaf of bread. I’ve watched beautiful young flowers crushed onto the trash heap of exploited women for defying God’s laws in pursuit of misguided “love.”

Principle: Defying God’s law in the pursuit of love or sexual pleasure is playing Russian roulette with bullets in every chamber of the gun.

After nearly six decades in a rich and wonderful marriage relationship, I look back on those times when my heart began to turn and the path to another woman looked inviting. When I do, I thank God for the Hound of Heaven who chased me down and held me to the wife of my youth. For this reason alone, I am no victim, not spiritually dead, and not worthless and unusable to Him.

Let the hearer listen and learn.

Principle: The priceless value of loving loyalty is never realized until all the cheap thrills of infidelity are in the distant past of God’s forgiveness.

[from “Wisdom for the Trenches” by Dr. Larry W. Poland]

Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses. (Proverbs 27:6)

He who rebukes a man will in the end gain more favor than he who has a flattering tongue. (Proverbs 28:23)

Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you. (Proverbs 9:8)

Hollywood—and much of the entertainment industry—has a really seductive cultural practice. I call it “vain praise.” It sounds like this: “Hey, baby, you have what it takes to be a star.” “Oh, dah­ling, you look gorrrgeous.” “With your looks/body/talent, you’ll be a household name in no time.”

I attended a Hollywood funeral a few years ago and listened to the flattering palaver of about a dozen of the media elite, some of whom I knew really couldn’t stand the deceased. Even in death (especially in death?), they couldn’t tell the truth.

God explains a fascinating dynamic in the writings of King Solomon about the benefits of rebuke and the folly of flattery. The concept isn’t abstruse. It is based on the value of telling other people the truth (graciously) and not worrying about their feelings or the possible backlash. Scriptures actually feature well-motivated rebuke as essential to true friendship!

You read it above: “The wounds of a friend can be trusted.”

Principle: True friends will love you enough to scrub you down with truth, even when they know it stings. Your enemies will lather you up with the soft soap of what they think you want to hear.

This principle of “rebuke-willingness” is so thoroughly endorsed by King Solomon that he touts it as a long-term strategy to gain favor. Note in the second verse cited above, the emphasis is on the long­ term. In the short-term, loving rebuke can have really adverse effects, because the wisdom of the rebuke hasn’t had a chance to “play out” to its consequences.

When the wisdom of a rebuke has kept the friend from suffering the consequences of a wrong path, a destructive habit, or serious character weakness, he will be filled with gratitude and embrace you.

Principle: A relationship based on open truth is true friendship; one built on flattery is a con game.

Solomon does have one caveat in the rebuke principle. That is discerning whether the one needing the rebuke qualifies as a “fool”­ one who despises wisdom and instruction. In such a case, he cautions us not to give unwanted counsel, direction, correction, or rebuke, because, “He who rebukes a fool invites abuse” (Proverbs 9:7).

Principle: A loving rebuke requires running your hand along the wall of another’s soul and feeling for a crack to put the truth in; if there’s no crack, don’t bother throwing it at the wall.

So a phrase to memorize when confronted with rebuke or constructive criticism is, “Thank you for the helpful suggestion.” It will help you, if you let God use it in your life!

[from “Wisdom for the Trenches” by Dr. Larry W. Poland]

A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heart­ache crushes the spirit. (Proverbs 15:13)

The look on their faces testifies against them; they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. (Isaiah 3:9)

As water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects the man. (Proverbs 27:19)

Comedian George Burns said of entertainment, “The secret to success in this business is sincerity. And if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” Is it not true that professional actors have to become outstanding in their ability to “fake it” when it comes to a role? They must fake evil motivations and cherubic ones, angry emotions and elated ones.

There is another facet in the human face that defies “faking.” It is the sincerity of heart which shows through even when a righteous actor is playing the role of a vile, despicable person—and playing it well. Something in the eyes says the actor is “too innocent” to be playing the part well. You’ve seen it and chalked it up to “bad casting.”

The Scriptures make fascinating observations about the human countenance—the spiritual “aura” that appears on the face and mostly inside the eyes. The Proverbs 27:19 passage links, indirectly, that mirroring of a face in a pond with the mirroring of the person’s spirit in the countenance.

Principle: The eyes are the window to the human soul, and what’s going on there shows on the countenance.

There is a “light” or a “darkness” in a countenance depending on the amount of spiritual light and life that exists in the soul. God is described as having a “light in His countenance.” God, speaking through Isaiah, told the Israelites that because of their spiritual darkness, “the look on their faces testifies against them… they do not hide it.”

A Berkley professor with two Ph.D. degrees conducted more than 1,200 controlled interviews for the military in Vietnam to discover the use and effects of hallucinogenic drugs. He told me that after he had done a couple of hundred interviews, he did not have to ask the soldiers if they had been delivered from drug addiction by a new birth through Jesus Christ. They had a “light in their eyes,” he said, and even bore witness to seeing a “physical light” at the moment salvation released them from bondage to drugs.

Principle: Persons with Christ in them possess a spiritual life and peace which shows as “brightness” and tranquility in the countenance; you can look for and see it.

About thirty years ago, testing this teaching, I began studying countenance and learning to “read” the spiritual light in them. After testing this principle successfully, I am convinced that both righteousness­ and its attendant peace—and darkness are revealed in the countenance. The apostle Paul describes an immoral woman who lives for pleasure as “dead even while she lives” (1 Timothy 5:6). This is the hollow-eyed whore or vile, dark-countenance libertine whose physical attractiveness is eclipsed by a lightless, death-driven countenance.

Principle: Sin causes darkness in the human spirit which shows in the countenance; it can’t be covered with makeup nor the light “faked” by a happy face.

Principle: True spiritual beauty abides in the heart and is transmitted to the eyes, making a person ‘ugly” or “beautiful” independent of physical attributes.

Be a light-filled, beautiful person. Let the light of Christ fill you and flow through you. By the way, you can’t fake this.

[from “Wisdom for the Trenches” by Dr. Larry W. Poland]

The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. (Proverbs 22:7)

The wicked borrow and do not repay. (Psalm 37:21a)

If you have put up security for your neighbor, if you have struck hands in pledge for another…go and humble yourself; press your plea with your neighbor…free yourself. (Proverbs 6:1-5, Excerpts)

In this age of easy credit—a dollar down and a dollar forever—even followers of Christ get snared into the folly of borrowing. It seems that some have followed the philosophy, “Borrow big and pray for the rapture!”

The wisdom literature of the Bible has a lot to say about the snare of indebtedness and the stupidity of the one falling into it. The passage above puts it bluntly: borrowing establishes a slave/master relation­ship with the borrower being the slave. If you have ever had a lending institution on your tail or bill collectors at your door, you understand who is in control and who isn’t! Lenders have the power, and often the law, on their side. Some lenders are particularly ruthless as in, “The glass eye is the warm one!” When this is the case, they can make your borrowing stupidity really painful.

Principle: Borrowing can be really foolish because it puts the borrower in servitude to the lender…and nobody likes being a slave.

In part because money is so important to those in the world system—and many in the household of faith, as well—deep offense is created by the sloppy handling of debt repayment. How many times have we heard, “I’ll never do business with Christians again. I helped out a Christian once, and he never repaid me”? One mark of integrity is the prompt and faithful repayment of obligations.

The psalmist is as blunt as the writer of Proverbs on this point: “The wicked borrow and do not repay.”

Principle: Meeting financial obligations in a prompt and timely manner is a hallmark of integrity. Not to do so puts us in the camp of the wicked.

“Fine,” you say, “but what about financial reversals or even ‘acts of God’ which keep us from meeting our obligations or meeting them in a timely manner? What then?” The Scriptures have remedies for these situations, and the first rule is to communicate…now! When Jesus gave commands on handling those who have something against us (like ticked-off lenders), He directed us, “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny” (Matthew 5:25-26).

Principle: Time is on the side of those with a cause against us, so we must communicate and settle issues promptly to avoid the dire consequences of delay.

Finally, don’t be too proud to grovel! If we can’t pay an obligation on time, the Proverbs 6 passage directs us to “go,” “humble ourselves,” and “plead.” If God grants mercy through our financial “masters,” the yoke of servitude may be lightened, and it will be worth eating crow.

Principle: To approach unmet financial obligations by silence, flight, or prideful resistance is not only foolish, it is counterproductive at every level.

Paul said it well in Romans 13:7a, “Give everyone what you owe him.” Doing so will set you apart from “the wicked” and strengthen your witness for the only True Master.

[from “Wisdom for the Trenches” by Dr. Larry W. Poland]

Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; someone else, and not your own lips. (Proverbs 27:2)

It is not good to eat too much honey, nor is it honorable to seek one’s own honor. (Proverbs 25:27)

My godly father had an expression which pretty much “nailed it” in describing people who are filled with themselves. He said with his wry smile, “I’d like to buy’em for what they’re worth and sell ’em for what they think they’re worth.” Big profit margin there!

If there ever were industries that specialize in inflated egos, exaggerated bios, out-of-reality press releases, and over-the-top self-adulation, they are entertainment and politics. Many in both camps pay an entire staff of people to tell others how wonderful they are, since their own all-out efforts at self-praise are totally insufficient!

Principle: If we are really great, people will find it out without our telling them. Telling them how great we are usually creates the opposite impression in their minds.

The Scriptures have a different emphasis from self-promotion. They support the pursuit of stature, not status. The principle articulated by Jesus is that “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14). This concept is a tough sell in this culture!

I know of a Christian leader who desperately wanted to be called “Doctor.” He was so desperate that he wrote to the presidents of a number of Christian colleges soliciting an honorary doctorate. Incredibly, one school gave him a DD-Donated Dignity. I always wondered why it didn’t seem hollow to him when he insisted that he be called “Doctor.” He had connived to get the title rather than working for years in an established university to get the honor like most others bearing the title.

Principle: Earthly honor soon dies, but humbling oneself before God brings the acclaim of heaven and its angels forever.

King Solomon and his friends were unimpressed with those who were impressed with themselves. They directed, in the two passages cited above, that people let praise come from the mouths of others, not their own.

Finally, I think the reason that prideful self-exaltation is condemned in Scriptures is there is no such thing as a “self-made person.” If there were, you could spot that person in a second by the defects in workmanship! Allowing others to recognize the character of God in us—and applaud it—is far more rewarding than trumpeting our own achievements and, thus, blaspheming their True Giver.

Principle: Self-praise steals from God the honor due Him, for no one ever achieves anything worthwhile apart from the gifts, abilities, and grace of his Maker.

Finally, the writers of Proverbs have a fascinating figure of speech to illustrate the counterproductive nature of self-promotion—honey gorging. Honey is sweet to the lips and rich addition to food when taken in small quantities, but I don’t know anyone who could stand sitting down to a gallon container of honey and trying to eat all of it. Very quickly it becomes too much of a good thing and turns bitter to the taste. I know a person who can barely speak a single sentence without including some self-aggrandizing reference. A little of that goes a long way.

The Book declares that if we “humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord, HE will lift us up!”

[from “Wisdom for the Trenches” by Dr. Larry W. Poland]

A happy heart makes the face cheerful. (Proverbs 15:13a)

A cheerful heart is good medicine. (Proverbs 17:22a)

Someone has said, “Everybody lights up a room—some by entering and others by leaving.” One would think that Christians, of all people, would light up a room by entering. Yet a friend of mine is convinced that some Christians are so dour they must have had special surgery—a “humor bypass.”

Amazing, isn’t it, the impression we leave everywhere we go just by the “affect” we display? Think over the list of people you really like or really like to see. Now give some thought to those you dread seeing. I’ll bet the difference is largely a matter of the “joy factor.” Everybody likes to be around authentically joyful people, smiley people, fun people, positive people.

Proverbs affirms the source of all of the above—a “joyful heart.” You see, it’s not laughter that is the good medicine; it’s a cheerful, joy-filled heart. I heard a successful Christian filmmaker say that all laughter is divine. He’s wrong. In Los Angeles, some gang members put a bullet in a little boy’s head and laughed. In Hollywood, comedians commit suicide. In Vegas, on Broadway, and in most bars, people laugh at really vile, wicked things. Only true joy is divine.

Principle: Laughter that flows from any place other than a pure heart has a polluted source and a poisonous effect.

As most commonly used in the Scriptures, the “heart” is the seat of the affections, the center of spirit, will, and emotions. It’s where God lives in the believer. It’s not all that inaccurate for us to ask children to “ask Jesus into your heart.” When He resides there, all of His char­acter traits reside there as well.

Principle: The one who is indwelt by the Spirit of Christ has His joy in his spirit; the first, telltale mark of sin’s entrance is loss of joy.

A visiting song leader to some revival meetings I attended as a kid surveyed the dour, straight-laced fundamentalists in my church, stopped the singing, and said, “If anybody here has the joy of the Lord in your heart, will you tell your heart to notify your face!” The writers of Proverbs knew there was an inviolable link between the two. “A happy face means a glad heart.”

Principle: As the pupil of the eye is the window to the world, So the countenance of the face is the window to the soul; it reveals the condition of the heart.

Cheer up! If you can’t, let Him fill you with His joy.

[from “Wisdom for the Trenches” by Dr. Larry W. Poland]

The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity. (Proverbs 11:3)

The righteousness of the upright delivers them, but the unfaithful are trapped by evil desires. (Proverbs 11:6)

If they say, “Come along with us; let’s waylay some harmless soul…,” my son, do not go along with them; do not set foot on their paths. (Proverbs 1:11-15)

An executive at a huge New York company felt threatened by the arrival of a new company chairman. So she sowed false stories in the press to leverage publicity in protection of her own job and agenda.

A retired Hollywood public relations executive for a major studio admitted to the LA Times that he and his company’s PR department spent a good percentage of their efforts using “anonymous sources” all over the nation to place destructive stories in the press about com­petitors, rather than just promoting the benefits of their own studio.

Washington, DC, politicians and Hollywood spin doctors threaten, manipulate the press, and spread lies to protect the interests of the pols or stars they represent.

Treachery. This is not a word we use often and not one most believers would ever think could describe them. But, in little and big ways, we can be a party to extremely cunning and treacherous actions…under other names.

Proverbs 3 uses the word duplicity. Every time we violate our integrity by (1) pretending to be something or someone we are not or (2) acting one way with an influential person and another way with those who can’t do anything for us, we tiptoe on the edges of treachery. Scripture makes it clear that this behavior is a self-set trap. There is a God who will guarantee that, sooner or later, the schemes to which we are the party will catch us!

Principle: One way to avoid being trapped is to avoid setting traps for others; God turns all evil schemes against those creating them.

The personal pilot for a powerful business executive made an error in preparing his private jet for flight, one which could have caused a crash. The pilot, a committed Christian, could have lied about the error and blamed it on something or someone else to avoid the con­sequences. Instead, he volunteered the truth in total transparency…and lost his job. But God took care of him, he kept his integrity and witness, and he has another fine position. More than that, his righteousness kept him from the backfire of his own scheme—far worse than being fired. A scheme to cover up this matter would most likely have been exposed. Both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton learned this lesson from Proverbs the hard way.

Principle: The way to escape the traps of others (or the enemy) is to do the right thing no matter the cost; short-term gains at the expense of integrity generate serious long-term losses.

There are situations in which running is not cowardly. Proverbs 1:15 describes one of these situations—when someone has an unrighteous plan and wants you to be a party to it. In different words, Solomon urges the righteous person to make a run for it! Don’t put a foot on the schemer’s path! Choke ’em in heel dust!

Principle: Every evil plan sets a path and draws others to take it. The righteous person runs away from this path as fast as the power of God will take him.

[from “Wisdom for the Trenches” by Dr. Larry W. Poland]