“Above all else, guard your heart.” This instruction from Proverbs 4:23 took on new meaning as I read Andy Stanley’s “Enemies of the Heart” and I was challenged to deal with the four negative emotions that attack my (and your) heart: guilt, anger, greed, and jealousy.
The book tackles the cause of and the effects of these emotions, how to spot them and how to identify them as the venom they are. Stanley equates these four emotions to types of debt: guilt as I owe you, anger as you owe me, greed as I owe me, and jealousy as God owes me. Thankfully, Stanley also gives practical applications of handling our encounters with these cancerous feelings. It you’re familiar with Stanley, you’ll see these useful applications are true to Stanley’s realistic and biblically sound teaching style.
“Enemies of the Heart” was an easy read, but sometimes tough pill to swallow. But like medicine, the pill needed to be swallowed and digested and allowed to do its job in healing me. The insight was compelling as I’d never thought of these emotions in this way. Now, when I’m tempted to envy what someone else has, I’m reminded that it’s the same thing as accusing God of owing me something. Ouch! Suddenly, conviction and knowledge help break me from that heart-killer.
It’s perfect for an individual read or group study since the last few pages include discussion questions for a six week study. The chapters are broken down into digestible chunks and the discussion questions in the back outline all chapters on each emotion so you can go through the book sequentially or tackle everything on one emotion at a time. This might serve as beneficial to someone who really wants to combat Satan’s attacks in one particular area like greed or anger.
Warning: Reading this book may lead you to dig out some nasty emotions you’ve pretended to hide or buried deep down! But as Stanley pens, “Like roaches that scatter at the flick of a switch, so these four enemies of the heart dissipate when exposed to the light of truth.”