Thoughts from the Past - Follow Your Heart?

Sept. 14, 2006 [edited]

Follow Your Heart?

"Follow your heart," the world tells us. "If you follow it you can't go wrong. Your heart will always lead you right."

God has a different thought on that -- as is usual where the world's philosophies are concerned. (By the way, a research on Google showed that this phrase is popular with New Age type people. That should tell us something.)

Proverbs 28:26 He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered.

You might want to read that again. That first part is a strong statement, and there's no getting around it. If you "follow your heart" you are a fool. God said so.
Why would the Lord God say a thing like that?

The answer: Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Our hearts are deceitful above all things. There is nothing more deceitful than the heart. Wow. That's a pretty amazing statement, and yet history has proved it absolutely true. I am not an exception. You are not an exception. (And, your wonderful boyfriend or darling son/daughter is not an exception either, by the way.) We are all sinners, and our hearts are not trustworthy.

My grandpa used to say that our hearts are so deceitful we can deceive ourselves and not know it, even when the people around us do know we are deceiving ourselves. Scary, but true.
God has a solution, though. He always does. (That is one of the proofs that He is God Almighty.)

Psalm 119:80 Let my heart be sound in thy statutes; that I be not ashamed.
Proverbs 4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

Now, we might ask, "Since our heart is not trustworthy, how can we trust in the Lord this way or keep our hearts for Him?"

1 John 3:18-21 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.

God is greater than our heart! What a wonderful comfort that is! Even if our heart condemns us unjustly, God is bigger and stronger, and He cannot lie! (Titus 1:2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;) The Lord knows if we are saved, if our real desire is to follow Him, and even if we are deceiving ourselves. There is no problem in our heart that is too big for Him!

To "follow your heart" then, is truly folly. We can only be safe in following our Lord, for only He knows and understands our hearts.

Philippians 2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

1 Peter 2:21-25 For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.

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First posted here Sept. 2012