Rethinking Following Your Heart
February 17, 2011
Here is another vlog for your enjoyment. I only wish you all could comment back in video form to my blog. Wouldn’t that be cool?
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https://vimeo.com/20062005
Sorry I never responded to your video comment…In some ways I agree with you Daniel and in some ways I don’t. I may give my heart to God, but I still have a sin nature. I have to choose to listen to the Holy Spirit living in me or to my own sinful heart. Memorizing God’s word or hiding it in my heart helps me hear His truth, but I still struggle with my emotions. One day my heart says, “life is good.” The next day it says, “life stinks.” What do I believe? Is the truth as capricious as hearts swayed by circumstances and hormones? Or is the truth unwavering, unchanging. God is good, sometimes I feel like He isn’t or the life He has marked out for me isn’t, but the truth is He is good, His plans for me are good. My heart lies to me and tells me what He has brought into my life isn’t good because sometimes it hurts, sometimes it doesn’t feel good. But the truth it is all for my good. He knows. He is good. I trust in that and not in my heart. Does that make sense? When my heart is under His authority it is easier to hear Him, believe Him, but it still tries to lie to me.
I think this is a major reason behind the Biblical prayer, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” We are new creations, but our renewal isn’t yet complete. So as He cleanses our hearts and makes them more like His, it remains vital that we compare everything with His Word, which we *know* is true.
Yes Laurel. Well said!
Sorry for the tardy reply, the past weekend was crazy busy for me. I agree with you, although sometimes I think the “heart lying to us” is a bit strong. Rather, I think the heart reflects our conflicted state of mind. We say we want to trust the Lord, but our heart often reveals even the smallest of our doubts.
In other words, I think of the vagaries of the heart as warning indicators that something is disturbing my spiritual walk, even if I don’t think anything is.
Daniel…How then do you deal with Jeremiah 17:9? God’s word says “The heart is deceitful above all else and desperately sick. Who can understand it?”
Our hearts are where the Holy Spirit dwells when we accept Christ, but the sinful nature wrestles around in us. In that case the heart is sick the only good thing in it is God.
Miss Angela, I would answer Jeremiah 17:9 with Jeremiah 17:10, which says, “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.”
I take this to mean that yes, our hearts are sick and deceitful. If we keep to ourselves, our hearts will remain so. Who can understand our hearts? God, with his wonderful omniscience, can do so.
We can open up ours hearts to God for him to search through, cleaning up the filth we allow into our hearts every single hour. And the LORD will know whether we donated money out of obligation or true charity. He’ll know whether we volunteered because we were chasing a pretty girl or whether we wanted to help. He’ll even know the things we hide from others, whether they’re too trivial or embarrassing to bring up with others.
After the good LORD has purified our hearts, then and only then can we say we have submitted our hearts to God. Once purified, our hearts will be healthy and honest with us. Of course, we who possess a sinful nature, regularly need to open up our hearts for searching. I believe that’s why prayer and daily quiet times are important for us.
I hope that clears up what I was talking about in my original video comment!
Daniel…I think we saying the same thing in two different ways. Our hearts lie to us apart from God. Jer. 17:19 tells us that. We often need cleansing because of the truth of Jer 17:19. Our hearts when clean and filled with the Spirit in truth are no longer “our hearts,” but God’s heart. However we have to weigh what our hearts are telling us with God’s word. If my heart is telling me something that is apart from God’s word it is my heart not God’s Spirit talking to me.
Jer 17:10 to me doesn’t answer Jer 17:19 to me, instead it clarifies that God knows our hearts better than we know them ourselves. The closer to God I have become the more sure I am that my heart apart from God is desperately sick.
That may be as clear as mud. Thank you for making me think through what I am saying.
Ah, I get where you’re gettin’ at now. Yes, two sides of the same coin we do speak.
Hehehe, yes, sometimes in the hurry of this instant blogging world we forget to parse our words more closely. That being said, thanks for providing food for thought and challenging me.
I honestly never thought I’d meet someone else in the church with the same kind of rhetorical abilities I have. I now know better than to think or say that I’ll never see something.
Sometime in the far flung future we should do coffee at Sweet Bay or something, Miss Angela.
Just testing vimeo embed, sorry for the double post…
[vimeo https://www.vimeo.com/20062005 w=400&h=300]Untitled from Daniel K. Tu on Vimeo.
Angela, what a blessing! Thank you so much for sharing this. And to see/hear you is such a treat. Miss you, friend.
Oh Laurel, I am so glad this blessed you. I miss you too friend. I am humbled that God would use even me. I am thankful too!
So great to see your smiling face and hear these wonderful spiritual truths! Thanks so much!!! 🙂
Thanks Angela. You are so sweet.