‘Just Follow Your Heart’ is a Big Fat Lie
Often times, our culture clashes so strongly with God’s Word. Sometimes, the lies that our culture presents to you seem so nice. They may even seem moral and good.
One of the lies that our culture pushes is to ‘follow our heart’. We see it in movies: your heart will tell you who is right for you. We see it in the self-esteem agenda: just believe in yourself and you can be anything you want to me.
These statements sound so loving and kind. They are the kind of statement that tickle our ears. It is what we want to hear.
But, the Bible strongly disagrees.
In my reading through Jeremiah, I came to the passage in Jeremiah 17:9-14
Jeremiah 17:9-10
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
As we can see here in this passage, the human heart is not to be trusted. Jeremiah gives us two characteristics of the human heart to always remember: 1) it is deceitful and 2) it is wicked.
When speaking of the “heart”, Jeremiah is referring to our desire or will. What we desire is not always for our good. In fact, our heart usually leads us in the wrong direction and not only that, our sin nature causes us to desire sin. So, to tell people to follow something that is not out for our good is BAD advice!
As humans, our decisions for our life are based on emotion and finite knowledge. Emotions change and our knowledge is not complete. So, clearly, basing our decisions on emotions and human knowledge is foolish. This leads us to Jeremiah’s question: “who can know it?” We don’t even know what our hearts want and what is best for us so why do we rely on ourselves or other people to make decisions.
The only one who knows all and has perfect emotion is God. He knows what is best for us and only He can rightly judge a person. Whenever we come up against a fork in the road of life before us, we should fall on our knees before God, the only One who knows our hearts. He will provide us with the best answer to our queries.
Don’t fall for the lie! Do not follow YOUR heart, follow GOD’S heart! That is the only way to ensure you stay in God’s will and make the best decisions for your life. Godly knowledge is only obtained through God’s Word and the Holy Spirit. Pray, read your Bible, and listen to the voice of God. If you seek Him, you will find Him – but you must SEEK!