Lead Your Heart

It is popular to say (and mock) the cliché, “Follow your heart.” And while I’d love to mock the idea with all of you, I thought it might be better to provide an alternative. Honestly, it’s pretty easy to give the alternative, because the Bible gives the alternative. But before I do that, the Bible makes it plain that the heart is not to be followed. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (Jer 17:9). That deceitful heart is not to be trusted. So if we aren’t to follow our hearts, then what should we do?

Get a New Heart

The first thing that needs to happen is that you need to get a new heart. That old heart is deceitful and crooked. It doesn’t need to be reformed, it needs to be replaced. And by God’s grace, when someone turns to Christ for salvation, a spiritual heart transplant happens. “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Eze 36:26). God has promised to remove that old, stony heart and replace it with a real, living heart. This new heart has new affections and new desires, and now has the capacity to respond to God in His word. If you don’t have this new heart, nothing else I say in this post will matter. So if you are not a Christian, stop here. The next bit of information is impossible without a new heart. Repent and believe the gospel. God always gives that new heart to those who turn from their sins and trust in the finished work of Christ.

Lead Your Heart

For those who have trusted in Jesus, the Bible calls us to lead our hearts. In a sense, we are not supposed to say, “Heart, where are we going?” Rather, we are to say, “Heart, follow me. Don’t go that way; come this way.” God’s Word gives us a few ways to speak about this. Remember Ezra? He “set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel” (Ezra 7:10). Ezra’s reforms didn’t happen by accident. He actually set his heart to the task of learning, obeying, and teaching God’s law in Israel. Or what about Joshua to the Israelites? He said, “Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your heart to the LORD, the God of Israel” (Josh 24:23). We are to incline our hearts to God. I’m not sure if you know this, but your heart will not naturally incline itself that direction. We must posture our hearts towards God. And we must cry out to God for this inclination. Just as the Psalmist prays, “Incline my heart to your testimonies” (Psa 119:36).

I’m afraid that too many of us are unwilling to do the hard work of charting the course for our hearts. We are content to ride the waves of emotion or pride or shame, and let our hearts lead the way. But our hearts are to be commanded. We are to take the reins of our thoughts and emotions and lead our hearts in the right direction. If your heart says, “I don’t want to rejoice,” you say, “Too bad; you’re not in charge. ‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, rejoice'” (Phil 4:4). Or as David commands his soul, “Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” (Psa 42:11). We take the truths of God’s Word as our guide and we take the posture of the Apostle Paul: “So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (1 Cor 9:26-27). Yes. We keep our bodies under control and not the other way around.

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So let’s be done with being bossed around by our hearts. The heart is deceitful and not worth following. Let’s replace a foolish heart-following with a bold and Biblical heart-leading. God gives us new hearts in Christ, and we are no longer bound to obey sin, so we can actually lead our hearts in a way that pleases God. May God help us as we seek to be faithful, and may He receive the glory due His name.

Jacob Crouch 2024