The Wellspring of Life

Today was one of those days that I found myself wide-awake at 4:30am. (Don't ask me how often this happens, I promise, you don't want to know.) So I kind of laid in bed for a little bit, but I couldn't get the thought of spending that extra hour or so with God. So I got up, trying to be extra careful and not to wake my roommate up.

I'm reading through The Pursuit of Holiness right now--I highly recommend it, it's ruining my life in the best way possible. 
And today I learned about our eternal, internal battle with sin. 
The idea that stuck with me the most is that even after we become believers, sin still lives in hearts. And it wants to take back the control that it lost to Jesus. 
The second thing is this: our hearts literally cannot be understood by humans. I have spent 19 years with this thing that holds my character--that holds who I am and how I come across to other people--and its still a complete mystery to me. 

Then the chapter ended with Psalm 4:23. 
"Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life." (ESV)

And that kind of shook my world a little... 
You see, ever since middle school, that verse has been used in regards to boys. "Are you sure about him? Make sure you're guarding your heart."
Which is also accurate. I'm just sorry that this is the first time I've ever heard it used to keep you aware of something else. 

So we established that sin dwells in your heart. And we know that the "heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick." (Jeremiah 17:9, ESV)
But there's another part of that--sin cannot be allowed to be planted and grow. 

"Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil." Ecclesiastes 8:11 (ESV)

So that's where the "guarding your heart" comes in. We have to constantly watch ourselves, because as soon as you stop, Satan has easy access directly to your root. And we have to ask the Holy Spirit to daily reveal things that we need to fix. Because the sooner you start dealing with sin, the less easily it will take ahold of you.