Follow Your Heart?
*When we think of following our heart, we rely on our emotions to guide us, what we long for, our desires & wishes; what we think will make us happy. The truth is, our heart is deceitful & can’t be trusted to guide us in right paths.
♦Gen 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
♦Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
♦Matt 15:19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
♦Prov 28:26 He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered. *What is wisdom? > Ps 111:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments...
♦Prov 3:3 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:
4 So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.
5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
*When we follow our own ways, desiring to satisfy our flesh, we are led astray by what we feel & not what we know to be right. However, if we receive Christ, & trust in his teachings, we are led by his spirit. Jesus says in Jn.14:26, that he will teach us all things & give us peace & he says, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
♦Prov 23:26 My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. *We have to surrender our heart (our will, feelings, concerns) the very center of our being, in order to be led by him.
►The Lord speaks to Ezekiel: “Say unto the house of Israel” >
Ezek 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. *I will give you a changed heart and a right spirit & I will take your stubborn heart of stone and will give you a willing heart. I will fill you with my spirit to lead & guide you to walk uprightly.
►The Lord shows Jerimiah >
Jer 24:7 And I will give them an heart to know (recognize, understand, and be acquainted with) me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.
Jer 31:33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
New Heart:
♦Heb 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
♦2 Cor 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
♦Eph 4:23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
*When we are born again, our heart is changed & we no longer walk after what the flesh desires, but we walk in the spirit that God has given us. (For more information on what it means to be born again, read these lessons available in ‘downloads: The Kingdom Message, What’s in a Name?)
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