Your Heart: Friend or Foe?

As Christian’s, should we be following our hearts? There are many calls to “follow your heart” in movies, novels, slogans, blogs, and memes. Related pieces of advice are “trust yourself” and “follow your instincts.” A corollary dictum is “your heart will never lead you astray.” The problem is that none of these quips are biblically supportable.

Rather than trust our hearts, we are to commit our hearts to the Lord. The Bible gives us an explicit command not to trust ourselves, while giving the promise of guidance to those who choose to follow after Christ (Proverbs 3:5–6).

We are, in fact, blinded to our own heart’s deceitful nature. As the prophet asks, “Who can understand it?” When we rely on ourselves for wisdom, we end up unable to tell right from wrong. The hit song of 1977, “You Light Up My Life,” contains these unfortunate words: “It can’t be wrong, when it feels so right.” Determining right from wrong based on “feelings” is a dangerous and unbiblical way to live. 

Enjoy this sharing by Marc Dickie as he looks at what the Word of God defines as the heart, what we can expect from it, and how to transform it into the image of Christ.