Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try my and know my anxious thoughts. And see if there my any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.
Psalms 139:23-24
We have all heard it before, "Follow your heart…"
However, is this really good advice?
Is this what God's Word teaches us?
We see in Matthew 6:21 that Jesus said, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." The logical question then would be: is it possible for our heart to value (treasure) something that is wrong or harmful—something that isn't biblical or in our best interest?
Umm, yes.
It is a struggle we all face, to value God as our infinite Treasure at all times. We so easily treasure many other things like money, houses, cars, education, relationships, and/or fame more than God.
That is why this "follow your heart" advice has the potential to be very dangerous. Our hearts can at many times be in the wrong place, like focusing on ourselves instead of God, or enticed by worldly things, places, and people that are not the best for us.
We should follow God above our hearts, because our hearts can lie to us.
Only when we are completely surrendered to God and walking by the leading of the Holy Spirit can we engage the heart more fully as we were designed to, but even then we must be very careful not to be deceived.
Our hearts can be deceitful, as we see in Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is more deceitful than all else… who can understand it?"
So who can understand the heart?
God can.
"I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the result of his deeds" Jeremiah 17:10.
When we can't trust our own hearts, we can come and rely on God to test the motives and conditions of our hearts, and reveal what is truly there.
No comments:
Post a Comment