How to Improve your Spiritual health(Part 3)

by Toyosi Adegunle

The Holy Bible tells us to guard our hearts with all diligence, for out of it comes all issues of life - Proverbs 4:23. I perceive ‘diligence’ here to mean discipline, consciousness, intentionality, being proactive, and all other words you can think of that perfectly describes ‘diligence’. 

In no order of importance, Prayer, Word and Friends are the first 3 pillars of spiritual growth that we treated in the last 3-4 weeks. Another major pillar is CONTENT.

● What are you watching?

● What do you listen to?

● What do you consume on social media?

● Who or what do you engage on social media?

● What trend do you jump on every now and then?

● What do you read? 

Think about your content consumption pattern and answer these questions. You could write them in your journal, so you can properly analyze them and let the Holy Spirit guide you on what to drop ASAP. Regardless of how strong you think you are, the truth is you can’t be "everywhere", you can’t listen to everything, you can’t just watch anything because it is trending. What you watch, read and listen to has a huge impact on who you become, your growth process, your response to the things of God and so many key areas of your life. The issues of life are numerous, in fact, more than you can ever imagine, you owe it to yourself to properly guard your heart. 

Lately, I was going through my Twitter timeline and from nowhere (somewhere actually), I saw an obscene image pop up because someone ‘liked’ the tweet. Ladies and gents, I did not hesitate to firstly block the original source and then unfollow the person that brought it to my timeline. Especially on social media, don’t hesitate to use your Mute, Block and Unfollow buttons. They are there for a reason and you should never feel bad about it. We all have values that matter to us, one of the values of a believer should be purity - your mind and heart should be pure and void of illicit content in whatsoever form. 

Sometimes, these things look and feel very harmless. “It’s just an article” “It’s just a series” “It’s just bants” “It’s not even that deep”. No, it is deep, very deep. Don’t give room for everything and anything in your heart. It could be hard but trust the Holy Spirit to always come through for us. Help is made available for you to always scale through life; tap into it and leverage on the help that God has provided.

This is what the bible says about guarding and keeping your heart: 

● “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;” ‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭3:5‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

● “Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.” ‭‭Psalms‬ ‭51:10‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

● “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6:21‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

● "that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,” ‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭3:17‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

● “A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.” ‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭16:9‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

I trust you've been enjoying the pillars of spiritual health so far. Next week, we will wrap up with an interesting pillar. I pray that this helps you audit the things that may be holding you back from going deeper in all God has created you for.

Please let us know what you think in the comment section 👍