Guard Your Gates

If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given. (Mark 4:23-24)

Jesus was clear that what you hear matters. He said to take heed of what you hear and how you hear it. In other words, there is content to manage and a posture to manage. Both matter because what consistently enters your ear gate is on its way to your heart, and what reaches your heart in abundance is what eventually comes out of your mouth and your life.

Your ear gate is one of the three main routes through which things enter your heart. The other two are your mouth, or what you say repeatedly, and your eyes, or what you allow yourself to see and dwell on consistently. Whoever you allow access to your ear gate has access to what is being deposited inside you.

Jesus said your friend is not a gossiper. Think about that plainly. A person who brings you gossip is not doing you a favor, regardless of their intention. They are putting things into your heart, the kind of things gossip carries, like division, suspicion, negativity, and details about people that were never meant for you to know or carry. Those things do not stay in your head. They get into your heart and affect how you see and treat people, and eventually what comes out of you is in ways you may not even recognize. The same principle applies to what you watch and what you read.

If you are regularly exposing yourself to things that contradict the Word of God, content that promotes fear, immorality, bitterness, or a worldly mindset, you are filling your heart with those things whether you intend to or not. It will rob you of your peace. It will make you vulnerable when pressure comes. Guard your gates. Don’t do it out of fear, but rather because you understand what is at stake in what you allow in.

Practical Application

Conduct an honest audit of what is entering your ear gate and eye gate regularly. What are you watching, listening to, and consistently surrounding yourself with? Identify one specific input that is not serving your heart, and decide whether to cut it off or significantly reduce it this week. Replace it with something that deposits the Word.

Luke 8:18; Matthew 13:12