Following Your Heart
Thus says the Lord, “Cursed is the man who trusts in and relies on mankind, Making [weak, faulty human] flesh his strength, And whose mind and heart turn away from the Lord .“For he will be like a shrub in the [parched] desert; And shall not see prosperity when it comes, But shall live in the rocky places of the wilderness, In an uninhabited salt land.“Blessed [with spiritual security] is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord And whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord.“For he will be [nourished] like a tree planted by the waters, That spreads out its roots by the river; And will not fear the heat when it comes; But its leaves will be green and moist. And it will not be anxious and concerned in a year of drought Nor stop bearing fruit.“The heart is deceitful above all things And it is extremely sick; Who can understand it fully and know its secret motives?“I, the Lord, search and examine the mind, I test the heart, To give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds. – Jeremiah 17:5-10
Beware of those who speak to our “heart felt needs”. No one knows the needs of the heart but God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. As the latter particularly speaks for us based on utterances we cannot understand to the Father. We misunderstand the close relationship between the human heart and our sinful flesh. We have a bad habit of ignoring the complete council of the heart. There is a tendency to respect and respond to only one of the three elements of the heart, which is the emotions. God sees the heart consisting of three components; the mind, the will, and the emotions. The mind contains the godly principles of God’s Law. Principles pertaining to the Law and the Prophets, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the Fruit of the Spirit. The mind is were the standards of God reside, it is our plume line. The truths that set us free. Our wills are actions based on what the mind knows. The will set our course like sails of a ship at sea. Unless we deploy the sails, all of the directing winds of the Holy Spirit moving over the waters will do us no earthly good. This is how I see the will affecting our lives. When you want answers to questions bad enough, you will go get them. When you want change bad enough, you know to start with yourself. When you want life, you stop dealing with death and it’s byproducts. When you want joy and peace, you stop chasing the high of situational happiness.
So until the truth in our minds burn with the emotions of the heart, we will only be a ghost ship drifting at sea. We will just ride the wave as we follow the course of the currents of this world. We become a moving ship wreck. Lastly, the emotions which need direction or navigation and something to harness its energy. Lightning is beautiful and very powerful. Yet, it’s completely useless, wild, and destructive. This is our unbridled emotions of the heart. It is like having this desire to explore the ocean but you have no maps or charts, no ship, no crew, no captain, and no charter from the king.
This is the danger of following your heart. This is the problem with following those that speak to our emotions only. Yes, they inspire us and cause an ignition of our fiery desire to do something… We began to feel so strongly about it until it feels right so how could it possibly be wrong? To speak to the heart is to zero in on the selfishness of our fleshy desires. It caters to basic human needs in a most general way because at our core we are truly the same. God said it best when He says, “all has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. We are all the same as we all have a sinful flesh which all have the same goal; to be the God of our own destiny and lives. This is the adventurer in us all who glorifies and romanticizing all of the things forbidden by the law of God. In mythologies there is always something that the hero feels can help mankind or free mankind from a evil source. And it is always the gods of Olympus keeping it from man. There is always the one god or goddess who secretly overrules zesus a helps man reach the forbidden item.
So it is in this case as well, beware of those who always say exactly what you need to hear about something God was silent on or has said no too. If the word of God don’t agree or brings glory just to you, submit yourself and it to the counsel of God. If not, you will become a pirate. You will be Captain Jack Sparrow roaming the Caribbean in search of the next great thing. Living a life of the undead cursed to self inflicted torment for eternity.
Anointed Place Ministries 