Recently, I ran across a post on Facebook from one of my Christian friends that quoted the passage:
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight.
This makes me remember another verse:
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Ok.. short post here but maybe this is all you need, to see where I’m going. If you apply THIS filter from Jeremiah 17:9; that the ‘heart’ is deceitful and desperately wicked to ANY other verse that mentions ‘heart’.. including the one from my Facebook friend in the opening paragraph – what are you left with?
How about with the following?
– Proverbs 4:23. Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.
– Romans 10:9. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
– Matt 12: 28-31. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength
– Proverbs 3: 5,6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding
– Psalms 37:4. Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
IF the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, then it is a poor thing to rely on in all of these endeavors up to and including salvation itself; how could anyone possibly know that they are not being deceived in their trust of god? Is it even god that they worship if they are leading with this wicked old heart?
Let the gymnastics begin…
Dropping all Pretense 