Jeremiah 17:9

Built on the Rock

Here are some inspirational quotes from some notable (some even considered genius-level smart) people to start your day off with:

• “Follow your heart, and listen when it speaks to you.” – Susanna Tamaro
• “There is no reason not to follow your heart.” – Steve Jobs
• “If you don’t follow your heart, you might spend the rest of your life wishing you had.” – Anonymous
• “Follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs
• “Follow your heart, never surrender your dreams. Always believe in yourself and let God do the rest.” – Anonymous

And now for a quick review that applies to every one of the above quotes: they’re all wrong and heretical at best. Especially the last one that has the gall to rope God into it.

If you spend this day only remembering one thing from this post, remember this: check everything against Scripture. If it doesn’t align, it’s not of God. If it claims to be from God and it isn’t Biblical, it’s heresy. This is black and white, right or wrong, and I’ll say it one more time: if something claims to be from God, or includes Him, but goes against His Word, it is heresy. It doesn’t matter who says it, it could be your spouse, parent, or even pastor. Everyone on this planet is capable of heresy, even unintentionally. Ever hear the old saying, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions”? (Prov. 14:12; Matt. 7:13)

So let’s put these quotes about following your heart up against Scripture to see if they hold up. Specifically, I want to look at Jeremiah 17:9, today’s Verse of the Day. You see, Jeremiah knew that if he ended up trusting himself that he would end up cursed, but if he trusted in the Lord he would end up blessed – but his heart betrayed him: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” The human heart cannot be trusted, healed, or understood. It will forever be devious, incurable, and inscrutable. This verse gives us one of the most powerful statements regarding our depravity in all of the Bible: “The heart is deceitful above ALL things.”

If you haven’t heard of the doctrine of total depravity, it means that every human to ever exist is sinful through and through. No part of us remains untouched by sin. That includes our mind, will, emotions, conscience, and heart. C.S. Lewis wrote in his introduction to The Screwtape Letters:

“Some have paid me an undeserved compliment by supposing that my Letters were the ripe fruit of many years’ study in moral and ascetic theology. They forgot that there is an equally reliable, though less creditable, way of learning how temptation works. “My heart” – I need no other’s “showeth me the wickedness of the ungodly.”

Lastly, today, let’s look at the very next verse to gain a better context of verse 9. “I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” (v. 10). This should terrify you.

Do you see what is happening here? “The heart is deceitful above all things” – “I the LORD search the heart.” Our depravity is placed right up against God’s justice. God answers Jeremiah’s question “who can understand it (the heart)?” The unknowable heart is known to God.

I don’t know about you, but the absolute last person I want to trust and wager my happiness on is myself. I will mess up. I will fail myself. If I’m responsible for my own happiness, then I’m for a lifetime of misery.

Instead, you should bank your happiness on the Lord, don’t follow your heart, follow the Savior. The truth is that the path to eternal happiness is far simpler than having to follow your heart, listen to it, gauge what it wants at the moment, and hope that you make the right choices along the way. Instead, just trust God and put your hope and happiness in Him.

If you’re wondering how to go about doing that today, then look no further than just a few verses later. He prayed for the Holy Spirit to take a sinful heart and fill it with passion for God. “Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved” (Jeremiah 17:14).

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