“Just follow your heart.” Have you ever been given that advice? Have you ever advised others to do that? The only problem with that advice is, it will get you in trouble — because the heart can’t be trusted. Your heart can convince you of anything and everything.
There is an interesting verse in the Bible (in Jeremiah 17:9) that says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and beyond cure; who can understand it?” That means there is no cure! There is no pill, there is no prayer, there is no seminar, no book, no conference, no song, that, at the end of it, your heart is no longer deceitful. Do you know what this means? It means you can’t trust your heart! And I can’t trust my heart! It’s why we do things that we know are wrong and we’re going to regret it later.
The Bible says we can’t cure it, which means it will never go away. I will always have the ability and the propensity to lie to myself, and act on my lies, and make excuses — and miss what God wants to do in my life.
The heart may be incurably deceitful, but there is some good news in this devotional: it can be managed. There is a great directive in Romans 12:2 in what is one of my favorite verses of all time: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed.” How? “By the renewing of your mind.” Then, and only then, “you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, perfect, and pleasing will.”
As you begin the process of renovating your belief system, then you will have the ability to test and approve what God’s will is. If you’ll get to the process of renewing your mind, then you have gotten yourself as close as you can to allowing God to do what God wants to, in and through you.
In the name of the One who can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,
Bruce Jones, Pastor and Co-Creator,
Imagine Church of the Carolinas
