Can You Trust Your Own Heart?
Sunday, January 03, 2010 AM
By Pastor James May
Someone wrote into a magazine article and said, "just follow your heart, it rarely leads you down the wrong path". What do you think? Could that statement be true?
One person said that when she let her heart lead her, she found herself bound into a marriage with a drug abuser because she loved him. She said, “If I had let my head lead me instead of my heart, I would have run the other way.
Now, that brings up another question? Which part of your being is the best part to believe in; your head or your heart? Those are good questions that many psychologists and theologians have tried to answer for a long time.
I believe that God’s Word gives us the answer to these questions in such a manner that anyone who is seeking the truth can find them and understand how to make better choices for every area of your life.
In a recent interview of a 26-year-old Swedish student questions were asked of her about her views on life. One question was this, “Do you believe in God, and do you believe in any religion?” "Absolutely not; only silly people believe in such things”, she answered. "Then how do you know what is right and wrong", she was asked. Her answer was, "My heart tells me."
In a nutshell, this way of thinking and believing, or should I say, non-believing, is the major reason for the great divide within America and between America and much of Europe. The majority of people use their heart -- stirred by their eyes -- to determine in their mind what is right and wrong. Only a small minority of people use the Bible and the leading of the Holy Spirit to make decisions for their life. Sadly, even within the ranks of Christianity, most people still trust their own thinking or listen to their heart when making decisions. Rarely do you find that man or woman that will make decisions in the manner that God desires.
You could pick almost any issue that is facing our society today and you can quickly see how these opposing ways of determining right and wrong are displayed.
Here are three examples.
Same-sex marriage: If you look at this issue with your heart only then you will find that the heart favors it. If you leave out the Word of God; and ignore God’s Law, then its easy to see whay people say that you have to have a hard heart not to be moved when you see many of the loving same-sex couples who want to commit their lives to one another in marriage. The eyes see the couples; the heart is moved to redefine marriage and the Bible and voice of the Holy Spirit is left out of the decision making process altogether. That’s what’s happening all over the world right now.
Animal rights: The heart favors them. Very few people, including those don’t really care for animals, are not moved in their heart when they see any animal being abused and neglected. The eyes see the cute little puppy or kitten, or some other animal. The heart then equates animal life and human life as all part of God’s creation and says, “that’s just wrong; animals have the right to life and happiness too; and then animals are given equal rights as humans under the law. Now we all know that’s true because you can be arrested for cruelty to animals just as quick, if not quicker, than being cruel to people. Once again, the Bible and it’s rightful interpretation, and the voice of the Holy Spirit are completely ignored when animals are placed on an equal plane with people, even though people are the only ones created in God’s own image and given an eternal soul.
One animal rights group called PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) are so moved by the idea of the slaughtering of chickens for food that the organization has a campaign titled "Holocaust on your plate". With their eyes they see the cute little chickens just enjoying life, but being raised only to be killed, plucked, fried, baked and stuffed; or to make KFC or Popeye’s richer. How can these people equate the slaughtering of chickens for food with the Nazi slaughtering of 6 million Jews? In their heart and mind, men and chickens are equal to people and have the right to live and prosper; that’s how!
In reality, I think that chickens are just paying the price for being tattletales. After all, it was a rooster that crowed to let Peter know that he had betrayed Jesus and preachers have been eating chickens ever since just to get even with that no good tattletale bird.
One researcher, over a period of 25 years, continually asked high school seniors across America if they would save their dog or a stranger first if both were drowning. The majority voted against saving the person. Why? It was because they love their dog and not the stranger. An entire generation has been raised with no reference to right or wrong; and their whole values system is based only on how they feel in their heart in any given moment.
Another example of an issue that is chosen by the eyes and the heart is that of Abortion: How can you look at a sad teenager who was caught up in a moment of passion; got pregnant; and is facing an uncertain future, and not be moved with compassion for them? Most of the world would say, “What kind of heartless person is going to tell her she shouldn’t have an abortion and that she has to have that baby, when it was just a simple mistake and now she is facing so much trouble”? You see, the eyes see the suffering of the young lady; the mind considers the cost and the consequences of what she will have to face on her own, and the heart says, “What can we do to stop all the pain”? Once again, the Word of God is negated; and the laws of God are ignored; and the voice of the Spirit is squelched and forgotten.
Can you see now why the Abortion Rights advocates try to ban the pictures of aborted babies? If that was allowed to happen too much, then the heart and mind would focus on the babies that were destroyed and public opinion would be reversed as people began to feel sorry for the babies instead of the mothers. That would bring down abortion rights and end the flow of money in the abortion clinics. You’ll never see abortion rights people displaying pictures of aborted babies and anti abortion rights people are considered as cruel and heartless if they attempt to show those pictures to make the public aware of the truth. And even in Christian circles, most would turn their heads because the truth is a really ugly and disturbing thing that we would really not want to see.
The eyes and the heart, working together, form a very powerful force. This force, that changes the very core of our thinking and decision making processes, can only be overcome when we are able to think with a mind that is founded upon a values system, and upon a foundation that is stronger than the combination of the heart and mind of man.
With the decline of Judeo-Christian concepts, the heart, shaped by what the eye sees becomes the source that influences people’s moral decisions. When God is left out, the Word of God ignored and no one listens to the voice of the Holy Spirit then we leave ourselves at the mercy of a heart that is easily deceived and a mind that has no absolutes, to make our decisions and this becomes a potentially fatal problem for all of mankind.
With this in mind, it becomes a frightening fact to discover that hundreds of millions of people have no problem in acknowledging that their heart is the source of their values. They are convinced that their own heart knows more than thousands of years of accumulated wisdom, and their heart knows better than the Word of God that has been divinely inspired by an omniscient God.
This elevation of the heart and mind of man, over and above the Word of God and the mind of Christ is nothing less than self-deification. In other words, man exalts his own heart and mind above the Word of God and makes his own mind, his god.
Proverbs 28:26 says, "He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered."
One of the first things you learn in Christianity is that the eyes and heart of sinful man are terrible guides to rely upon because they cannot lead us back to God.
Numbers 15:39, "… seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring…" It is the lying heart and the lust of the eyes that often drag the Christian off into the world, chasing after other things that become his gods and thus causing him to commit spiritual adultery in the sight of God.
I know that all of you have probably heard, or read Jeremiah 17:9 which says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"
Long ago, in the dawn of man’s existence, God knew that the heart of man would not stand the test of Truth and Righteousness. It came to a point over 4000 years ago when God had to do something drastic to slow down the degenerative process in the hearts of men. In Genesis 6:5 we read, "And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."
What did God do to slow down man’s evil imagination? He destroyed everything in a great flood and gave man a chance to begin anew through the eight people who were saved on the ark. But this only slowed the process, it didn’t stop it. God only knows how far we would be in the depths of sin and depravity today if He had not given us a second chance.
The heart of man is still inherently evil – a fact that man does not want to accept and confess. Because man still wants to trust in his own heart and not hear the voice of God, we are destined to come to the point in our history where mankind must once again be brought to the brink of annihilation. God isn’t bringing us there – we’re bringing ourselves there.
God’s desire is to see mankind saved and He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sin so that we wouldn’t have to die. But man won’t accept God’s offer of salvation because it means relinquishing man’s idea that he is his own god; and confessing that his heart is evil. Our own ego is driving us into the very pits of hell.
Let’s talk about the heart for a minute.
The heart of man is a very deceitful thing.
The heart deceives us concerning sin. Our heart tells us that there is something worthwhile to gain by committing sin, whether it’s the drug addict who is convinced that he can still beat the effects of the drugs and experience the high that it gives at the same time. The heart tells us that the pleasures of sin are worth the price that we will pay for committing it.
The same would hold true for alcoholic consumption, sensual pleasures and any other kind of worldly activity outside of the boundaries which God has set in place.
The heart deceives the musical artists and singers who sell out the world to get popular and become rich. The heart loves the lifestyle; the mind says that it can’t be that bad; look at all the good that comes of it, but it’s all a lie. The truth is that all of it draws us further from God; brings ultimate shame upon us; and usually brings bitterness and in the end, eternal punishment for sin. The promises of security, peace and happiness are never fulfilled, but are replaced by constant danger, constant worry and always having to watch your back.
The heart also convinces us that we know much more than we really do. We have all of the worldly wisdom that we can muster. We think that we know best, but we really know nothing. We do not realize that we are basing our knowledge on error and sin. Satan has us blinded to the truth and we believe the lie. There is no true knowledge without God and His Word.
The heart also deceives us concerning the condition of our souls and in the beliefs that we hold on to in our religion. The heart makes you believe that you are good and right; and that you are on your way to heaven; when in reality, many are not. They are convinced in their own heart that the things they do are not really sin, just little mistakes that God will overlook. Someone else may be committing sin, but not me; I make mistakes but they aren’t sin.
I may have made a mistake and used profanity but I didn’t mean it. I may have gone out with friends and downed a few adult beverages, but it was all in good fun. There’s no sin in that. I still love the Lord and go to church.
We can often see the lies of the devil and we can avoid them, but then we fall prey to our own deceitful hearts, believing what we see and feel more than what the Word of God says.
The Bible asks the question, “Who can know the heart of a man?” The angels of God don’t know your heart. Satan cannot truly know your heart, for he also is an angel. Only the spirit of a man can know the things that are in his own heart. But even then, the natural man doesn’t know everything in his own heart. Those who claim to be perfect certainly don’t. They are ignorant of the sin that is still there for none of us are perfect.
Only through the power of the Holy Spirit and through the Word of God can a man really discover what is in his own heart. And in the end we must determine that only God knows the heart of man completely.
1 Corinthians 2:11, "For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God."
Matthew 24:22 tells us that there is another Day of Reckoning coming, when God will have to bring another worldwide judgment upon those who rely only on their own heart and mind, and that He will do so to keep us from destroying ourselves completely, "And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened."
For man to continually deny the Word of God and to rely upon his own lying heart shows just how foolish man really is. How long does man think that he can defy God and get away with it? The answer is, “forever”, because he doesn’t accept the fact that there even is a God who rules over all things.
So let me give you an answer to the questions, “Can you trust your own heart” and “Can you trust your own mind”. The answer to both of those questions is “NO, you can’t trust either one”, at least not in the context of human ability alone.
Now there is a way that both your heart and your mind can be trusted. Do you know what that way is? That way is through Chris alone.
In 1 Corinthians 2:16 Paul tells us that if we are in Christ and we are allowing Him to lead us and direct our paths, then, "… we have the mind of Christ." The only way that you can trust your thinking to be right is if you allowing the Holy Ghost to speak to you; the Word of God to lead you and Jesus to be the Lord in you. Jesus said that he alone is the “Truth; the Light and the Way.” If we allow Him to rule in us, then we will know the Truth and the Truth shall make us free. And if we are made free in Him, then are we free indeed; free from the evil heart of sin; free from the reprobate mind; free to make right decisions.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." What do the words “old things” mean? It means the old way of thinking; the old way of believing; the old way of living and the old man that once lifted himself above God has now humbled himself before God and confessed that he is not God.
From that day on, we can learn to walk wisely. Day by day our thinking process is changed. Isaiah 28:10, "For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:"
Romans 12:2-3, "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith."
You can trust your heart, but only if your heart is guided by the Holy Spirit. You can trust your heart, if Jesus lives in you. You can trust your heart; if you allow the Word of God of cleanse you daily from the desires of the flesh. You can trust your heart, but only if your heart is surrendered to Christ.
You can also trust your mind and your thinking, but only if your mind has been renewed by the power of the Holy Ghost and you have in the Mind of Christ.
Surely Christians will fail. We will not always make the right choices. But I am convinced that if we are as close to God as we should be; and we are listening to the voice of the Lord as he speaks to us, that we will never go very far from God.
As we come to the close of this year and look forward into the coming of a new year, let us strive to put on the Mind of Christ; to hear the voice of the Spirit; and to be led by the Spirit and the Word.
Let’s pray that our community and our nation experience a revival and that men will turn their hearts back to God. That’s the only way that a man can turn his life around and that’s the only way that we can turn our nation around also.
Proverbs told us that “he that is wise, shall be delivered”. Deliverance comes from knowing the Truth and Truth only comes from knowing God. When we commit ourselves to truly knowing God, then we will be delivered forever from the sin that comes from a deceitful heart and a twisted mind.
Have you been trusting your heart and relying upon your own thinking? My friends, your heart will lie to you and deceive you, and unless your thinking is based firstly on the absolutes of God’s Word and His Law, then you can’t rely on your own thinking either.
The heart of man is deceitful and the mind of man is blinded to the truth. You need Jesus in your heart and you must have the Mind of Christ in all things.
Let this New Year of 2010 be the best year of your life. Put your trust in the Lord; get your heart right with God and then start learning to hear the voice of the Spirit and get the Mind of Christ. I guarantee you that this will be a great year for you if you will do that.
