FOLLOW YOUR HEART?

Read Jeremiah 17.

We have heard the instruction, “Follow your heart!” We dare not! Rather, heed the will of God found in the Word of God. The heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked. Sin has been engraved on it with a diamond-tipped, iron pen, so that what we think is good is bad and that which we brand bad is good.

The people of Judah were doomed to judgment for following their hearts’ diabolical desires. They worshipped the creation rather than the Creator. They trusted in what they could see instead of the immortal, invisible God who saw them.

The beautiful, bountiful blessings of a land flowing with milk and honey would be stripped and plundered by a marauding army. It would be as though they were sitting in the gasoline of God’s wrath, and their sins were the match they would continually be striking, until one day the explosive flame of HIs fury ignited.

We can know the blessing of trusting in God or the cursing of trusting in ourselves. To look to the Lord as our hope is to find the stability of being rooted by the river of His grace, the beauty of evergreen foliage where we reflect His glory, and the productivity of fruitfulness as His Spirit works in and through us.

Jeremiah testifies to his faithfulness in a populace that had forsaken the Lord. He cries out for God to spare him even as he visits judgment on his generation. He confesses his hope in the Lord.

It is never easy to stand alone. But, really the child of God never does—the Lord is near all who trust in Him. We can speak against the evil of our day. They may not be persuaded to repent. This generation may choose to stop their ears to the truth—that is the deceitfulness of the heart. What I have control over is my own path—to choose God’s way, as I look to His wisdom and lean on His strength. In the words of the old hymn:

“Stand up, stand up for Jesus!
Stand in His strength alone,
The arm of flesh will fail you, ye dare not trust your own.”