Over the last few months, God has been showing me my heart and it hasn’t been pretty. We have a picture of what we believe our hearts to be like (at least I do) and I like to think that my heart is good and clean because I serve God.
But, God has shown me otherwise. He has shown me that my heart is not to be trusted on its own. It is not to be placed above a relationship with Him, a daily basking in Him. Many times the world tells us to follow our heart. And in theory, this sounds really good. “Go after what you want, trust yourself, follow your desires, do what you really want to do, you’ll be happy when you do what your heart tells you,” the world says to us in so many different ways.
But that advice is contrary to the what the Word of God says. I know! It’s hard to take in because for so long, we have heard this message.
The number one reason I don’t trust my heart (without the leading of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God):
“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”
Jeremiah 17:9
“For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are the things which defile a man…”
Matthew 15:19
What do you mean my heart is deceitful? To put it into perspective, the original meaning of the word deceitful means: [sly, slippery, crooked, fraudulent, polluted]
Synonyms of the word are: insidious, cunning, shifty, underhanded, sneaky, artful, indirect, proceeding in a gradual subtle way.
Now can you see more of what the scripture is saying? The heart is sneaky, and will point us away from the Lord in a gradual subtle way.
The heart by itself has a natural inclination to oppose the will of God and scripture teaches us to put very little trust in the heart by itself. No matter how much we love the Lord, with the same heart, there is great danger in putting our hope in our heart and the way that our heart points us. It is deceitful and if it not daily submitted to the God’s heart and God’s purpose, it has the potential to lead us astray.
We are to trust in a heart that is submitted to the will of God. We are to trust in a heart that the Lord is working in a heart that God is changing daily, that God is renewing, that God is reworking. Left on it’s own, it will always lead us astray.
The heart, without a daily invitation to the Lord, will lead you to take actions you know you have no business taking. It will lead you to say the words that will cause hurt and damage because you feel a certain way. Without a daily regulation from the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, our hearts often times encourage us to succumb to our desires go against the Lord’s desire for us. I’ve followed my heart and made some horrible decisions when I wasn’t in the Word, when I was not in communication with God.
Lord, create in me a clean heart and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Take out my stony heart and give me a heart that will joyfully respond to you.
Psalm 73:26; EZEKIEL 11:19-21
So what do we do? We are to submit our heart daily to the Lord and ask Him to flood our hearts with His desires, His purpose and to expose the craftiness of our hearts. We ask God to take our our stony heart, our heart that may be hardened and opposed to His heart. We ask God to “Search us [thoroughly], O God, and know our hearts; test us and know our anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive [wicked or hurtful] way in us and lead us in the way of the everlasting.” Psalm 139:23-24
My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:26
O Lord, I need you to daily wash me heart and dig up the very things that are hidden in there that are contrary to Your will and Your word. I put no trust in my own heart; instead, I put my trust in You and in what You can do.
