Scripture for Today: Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”
This saying on a poster is beautiful, and there are many like it. We enjoy thinking of the heart as lovely and romantic, and so often it is. We counsel each other to just follow your heart and all will be well. Somehow, the heart will guide us to the right way, the right solution, the right love. When we listen to our heart, we discover what we really desire.
Today’s verse has a message of warning about the heart. The heart, which in the Bible is the seat of all our emotions and will, can deceive us. We try to understand what our heart is saying to us. But no one can quite understand. One day it says one thing and the next, another. The heart is fickle and incomprehensible. We ourselves cannot cure its deceitful nature. The only cure comes from its Maker. He sees the pride and selfishness hiding out there and His love and forgiveness are the cure.
I have often been quite sure about what I have wanted. Then, when I have managed to receive it, I find that I did not want it after all. That brings to mind the dog who chases after a car. He has no clue what to do with it once he catches up to it! Because I cannot cure it, I need to follow Someone who knows my heart better than I do. The Lord searches my heart and tries it. As my Creator, He understands my heart. He knows what I really want and what will bring me true satisfaction and fulfillment. He knows so much better than I do what is good for me and what is not.
Lord, do not let me be deceived today. Help me follow Your heart!
(Look familiar? This is a re-worked post from 2018)
Devotions By Jan 
February 15, 2021 at 8:17 am
God knows just what I need to hear! His timing is so perfect!! Here is an excerpt a friend sent this morning which I read right before your devotion, Jan. Sometimes we follow our hearts and step over God’s boundaries for us in doing so. From Paul Tripp:
It’s often a subtle thing, going on almost unnoticed, but it has huge implications for the way we live. You and I step over God’s boundaries because there are moments in our lives when we are able to convince ourselves that we are smarter than God. We tell ourselves that what He says is wrong, isn’t so wrong after all. We convince ourselves that we can disobey God and it will all work out in the end. We tell ourselves that our way is better than God’s way. The big lie that fuels all this is that there is life, real life to be found on the other side of the boundaries that the all-knowing, all-wise God has set for us. It is a lie that was first told, embraced, and acted upon in that terrible moment in the garden of Eden. Human beings have fallen into believing that lie ever sense.
In those moments, we are a danger to ourselves because we have bought into what is completely impossible – that we know more and are wiser than God. It is the height of the delusion of sin. It is a dangerous and destructive moral irrationality. It leads us nowhere good. It never results in the life that we are seeking. Proverbs 16:25 captures the solution with brief but powerful words: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but it’s end is a way to death.”
This “I’m-smarter-than God“ temptation stands as another argument for our daily need for grace. It is yet another place where we need to be delivered from ourselves. It reminds us again that none of us have outlived our need for the rescuing mercy of an ever-present and ever-willing Redeemer. Run to that mercy once again today.
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February 15, 2021 at 8:20 am
We need to be delivered from ourselves! So true! Thanks for sharing 😊
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