And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after.
~Numbers 15:39
THE THOUGHT
"Follow your heart" is a revered American mantra. From Disney movies to pop music to self-help books, it is the catch-all, universal piece of advice that most of us follow without ever questioning. It fits well with our idolatry of all things individual and inward and subjective.
The Bible, however, has a very different take on “following your heart." The book of Numbers gives us this strong warning: "Don't follow your heart! Don't follow the desire of your eyes!" The reason that God gives for this warning is that we are inclined to "whore after" the desires of our hearts--in other words, to devote our love and trust to anything other than God. Jeremiah says that our hearts are "deceitful above all things, and desperately sick." Why, then, would we ever trust them? Even as believers who have been given a new heart and new nature, there is still a constant war of competing desires within us. The desires of the flesh are opposed to the desires of the Spirit, Paul urgently reminds us. So don't assume that the desires and emotions and thoughts and feelings within you are godly; if you can't trace what you are thinking or feeling to the authority of the Word of God, that thought or feeling probably can't be trusted.
So if we shouldn't be following our hearts, what should we be looking to? Sinclair Ferguson addresses both the malady and the cure: "The evangelical orientation is inward and subjective. We are far better at looking inward than we are looking outward. We need to expend our energies admiring, exploring, expositing, and extolling Jesus Christ."
THE PRAYER
Lord, Turn my attention away from what is inward and subjective, away from constantly taking my emotional temperature and listening to the complaints and desires of my heart. Fix my attention away from me and onto Your Son. I want to expend all my energies every day admiring, exploring, expositing, and extolling Jesus Christ. Make my heart more like His.
EXTENDED READING
Numbers 15:37-41
Jeremiah 17:9-10
Galatians 5:13-17
THE QUOTE
"God can fix any broken life as long as you give Him all of the pieces." ~Anonymous
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