My message today asks the question….Should We Follow OurHeart
Listen, I take my garbage out to the street every Friday morning. It is picked up on Friday afternoon. It sits on the sidewalk all morning, completely unguarded and I don’t worry at all about it. Why? Because it is worthless.
But it’s not so with your heart. Your heart is the essence of who you are. It is your authentic self—the core of your being. It is where all your dreams, your desires, and your passions live. It is that part of you that connects with God and other people.
Proverbs 23:7 “For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he”. 1 Samuel 16:7 “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his (Saul”s) appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees. For man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
A popular mantra today is “Follow your heart”…. When someone is trying to determine if a relationship is good or not, or whether they should take a job, or change careers, the most common advice seems to be, “follow your heart.”
That would assume that the most trustworthy guide for human behavior and decision making is an inner compass called the heart. It’s another way of saying that we should all follow what we’re the most passionate about….
When it comes to matters of the heart, We should lead our heart and not let our heart lead us… People have married, based on that follow your heart perspective…they have taken jobs which they were the most passionate about…and they have invested all their time and finances, only to have it all fall apart. The heart can be faulty and the emotions that rise from passion can be fickled…. If Romeo and Juliet had understood that, they would still be alive!
I submit that we should follow our heart but be sure to take our brain with us…..How can so many people who have followed their hearts, be so wrong….I was looking at some song titles….Tony Bennett left his heart in San Francisco…(that doesn’t sound good) Neil Young is searching for a heart of gold…(which means he’s probably still searching) Neil Diamond wants everyone to turn on their heart light.. (which means he’s groping in the dark) Bonnie Tyler is having a total eclipse of the heart…(self explanatory) There are over 4000 different religious systems, with followers who have given their hearts in adhering to these systems. If you were to ask them, They ALL believe their hearts are right.
A man had heart surgery, and he awakened from the surgery to find himself in the care of nuns at a Hospital. A nun asked him if he had health insurance. He told her he had no health insurance.She asked if he had money in the bank. He told her he had no money. She asked him if he had a relative who could help. He said, "I only have an impoverished sister, who is a nun." The nun said, “Sir, nuns are not impoverished, they are married to God." The patient told her, "then in that case, you can send the bill to my Brother-in-law."
This brings us to the “HEART” of the matter… The problem in the world today is not a lack of sincerity or a lack of heart…. The problem is actually a lack of truth. The heart is very unpredictable unless it is guided by truth, wisdom and understanding .
When my lawn mower is needing to be tuned up it sounds like….Brrrrump Bump Bump Bump. Brrrump. Brrump puhp puhp. SoI get another mower and before long, it goes Brrrrump Bump Bump Bump. Brrrump. Brrump pluuuhmp pluuuhmp. I just don’t get along well with internal combustion engines.
So there's a guy in town who goes around and picks up the mowers that folks are throwing away. He understands internal combustion engines. And with just a screwdriver, some cleaning cloths and fresh gas, he can usually take those thrown-away lawnmowers and have them running great in just a few minutes. And you can hear the pitch of those motors changing when he works on them. Eventually, he hears the sound he wants to hear and the mower is running fine.
When a heart gets way out of tune, you can hear it across the room. A heart out of tune has a distinctive sound, and you can get it in tune if we adjust it so that it stops making that sound so much. This is the sound of a heart out of tune: "me me me meme me." "I, I, I, I.." "Mine, Mine, Mine." "My way, my way, my way."
You see, our heart is designed to hear three things: How we feel. How others feel. How God feels. When my heart is out of tune, I have no trouble hearing how I feel. In fact, that's all I hear, then it gets louder, and louder, until everyone knows exactly how I feel about every little thing. I will always feel my pain, I will feel it deeply, and I will feel it all the time. But I won't be listening to God, or to how others feel. Because my heart is way out of tune. "But what about me? Don't they care about me? Don't they know who I am?" "Don't you care how I feel?"
In 1937 architect Frank Lloyd Wright built a house for the wealthy industrialist Hibbard Johnson. One rainy evening Johnson was entertaining distinguished guests for dinner when the roof began to leak. The water seeped through directly above Johnson himself, dripping steadily onto his bald head as he sat at the table. Furious, he called Wright in Phoenix, Arizona. “Frank,” he said, “you built this beautiful house for me and we enjoy it very much. But I have told you the roof leaks, and right now I am at dinner with some friends and distinguished guests and it is leaking right on top of my head.” Wright’s reply was heard by everyone there. “Well, Hibbard, have you thought about moving your chair?” How many times do we sit under the drip, complaining, instead of moving our chair!!!!!
If you’re flying on an airplane, during the preflight instructions they will tell you about the oxygen masks, and they say, place the oxygen mask on your own face, then place the mask on your child. I can't help others if I don't take care of myself. The heart is not designed to just take care of itself; it is designed to care for others, as we hear the voice of God.
Matthew 7:3 "Why do you notice the speck in your brother's eye and not the beam in your own eye? First remove the beam from your own eye; then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
Two men were walking down a crowded sidewalk. Suddenly, one of the men commented, "Listen to the lovely sound of that cricket!" But his friend could not hear the sound. He asked the man how he could hear the chirping of a cricket amidst the sounds of traffic and people. The first man, who was a trained zoologist, said that he had trained himself to hear the sounds of nature. He then took a hand full of change and threw it on the side walk and a dozen people turned around and looked. "We hear what we listen for."
Proverbs 4:23 says, "Guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it springs all the issues of life.”
Discernment, is a very important Guard for the heart, it is the ability to determine and choose the good from the best, the best from the bad, and the right from the wrong. One of the characteristics of maturity is to be a discerning person. It is a learned ability that involves self-discipline.
Infants lack discernment. The world revolves around you and your world is about instant gratification. And toddlers have only one drive in life in relation to everything they see: put it in their mouth! A small child crawling on the kitchen floor will find a Cheerio under the chair - and into the mouth it goes. He finds a potato-chip fragment - and into the mouth it goes. But he doesn't care if the thing is edible or not. If he finds a broken piece of purple crayon - into the mouth it goes. If he finds a dead bug - into the mouth it goes. Little children lack the important ability to be discerning.
When it comes to matters of the heart, many adults don't discriminate between what's good for them, and what's bad for them. They will let just about anything pollute and compromise their spiritual life. They spend more time guarding and protecting their property than their soul. They spend more time watching their diet than nurturing their spirit. They spend more time scrutinizing their financial assets than checking their thought-life. They fail to watch their heart; and they suffer needlessly as a result.
We all face four thieves, the world, the flesh, the devil and our own rotten thinking, and these four stalk us always seeking ways to steal the good treasures of the heart and to replace them with what is not the best thing or the best outcome for us.
A minister, a Boy Scout, and a computer expert were the only passengers on a plane. The pilot came back to the cabin and said that the plane was going down but there were only three parachutes and four people. The pilot added, "I should have one of the parachutes because I *…..have a wife and three small children." So he took one and jumped. The computer whiz said, "I should have one of the parachutes because I am the smartest man in the world and everyone needs me." So he took *….one and jumped. The minister turned to the Boy Scout and with a sad smile said, You are young and I have lived a rich life, so you take the remaining parachute, an I’ll go down with the plane." The Boy Scout said, "Relax, Reverend, the smartest man in the world just jumped out with my backpack!" (be sure of what you’re taking a leap for)
We can get our heart out of tune, when we focus on two or three rotten apples and forget about the 50 good ones in the barrel. We can allow our hearts to be vexed by offences, hurts, injustices and unkindness… We can focus on these things and lose sight of all the wonderful and amazing blessings of God and good people that are all around us in our lives.
Philippians 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
Two year olds love to say “No” and “I can do it”….and while believers possess a new nature, and the capacity to know God, and can discern spiritual things, and they have received the enlightening and empowering ministry of the Holy Spirit…. they still possess the very deceptive tendency to put God on a shelf and want to do it themselves.
But God speaks to us through Isaiah 55:8-11 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. v9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, Soare My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts”. All the wisdom we need comes in two parts—the knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves. That means you’ve got to know God and you’ve got to know your own heart.
In scripture, the heart is about what is at the center of a person…. Our spiritual condition, our mind and thought life, our will, our conscience, our moral character, the seat of our desires and passions, and the source of our sense of courage and self-sacrifice.
For example, when God sent the plagues against Egypt, it was because Pharaoh's heart was hardened; meaning his "will" was set against God. When King David's son, Absalom wanted to turn the allegiance of the people from David to himself, the Bible says that he "stole the hearts of the men of Israel", meaning their commitment and loyalty. God sent the flood on mankind, the Bible tells us, because He "saw that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually".. meaning their moral character. When David numbered his soldiers in disobedience to God, the Bible tells us that his "heart condemned him"; meaning his conscience was against him. King Rehoboam was said to be an evil king, "because he did not prepare his heart to seek the LORD", meaning his inner priorities and values.
Without even realizing it, serving the Lord can become a religious habit without a heart. The Pharisees had religion but no heart…. In His Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus spoke strongly against the mere external, performance-oriented hypocrisy of the religious Pharisees. And with Divine clarity, he built a bridge between the religious laws and the heart of the gospels. In Matthew 5:17-48, six times in his sermon, He put the passion back into serving God.
Verse 21 he said “You have heard … but I say to you …”
Verse 27 “You have heard … but I say to you …”
Verse 31 “It was said … but I say to you …”
Verse 33 “You have heard … but I say to you …”
Verse 38 “You have heard … but I say to you …”
Verse 43 “You have heard … but I say to you …” King David in his early life was so passionate about serving the Lord, but as he got older, some of his passion for God began to diminish. His heart got out of tune and pride began to rise up. You might say that he got a heart blockage.
Then he fell horribly into prideful sin, he became a broken man before God. His brokenness is recorded for us in Psalm 51: 17. There, we find these words, "the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart - these, O God, You will not despise". David's great prayer request was, Psalm 51:10 "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me". David knew he needed a tune up, but he kept putting it off until he could not ignore it any longer!
The heart needs guarding because we do not naturally think and look at life like God does. We are ignorant of His mind and His ways. We desperately need the wisdom and direction of the Lord to know His ways and to know our own heart and its tendency to wander.
1 Corinthians 6:19 “What? Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own? v20 For you are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's”.
1 Corinthians 7:23 “You are bought with a price, do not become the servants of men”.
The heart needs guarding because we really don’t want to be THAT HOLY, so like sheep, we easily stray from the shepherd, in our hearts. We want to trust God with getting us into heaven, but we would prefer to direct our own affairs down here on earth partly because we are convinced that God wants to spoil all of our fun. To completely follow His directions means we may be called on to give up something that we think we must have in order to be happy or secure.
The heart needs guarding because we can’t trust it. It is selfish, self-centered, and self-protective. In order to experience God’s way we must first forsake our self-trust, then, in the place of self-trust, we need to learn to rely completely on the Lord regardless of how things appear, rather than lean on our own understanding.
The heart needs guarding because the heart is the wellspring of life. It is the fountain that attitudes, values, beliefs, aspirations, and pursuits flow out of. This is the very reason we can easily be deceived, since the carnal and Divine both struggle to control these issues…. Psalm 42:1 “As the hart (deer) pants after the water brooks, so pants my soul (center, life, heart) after You, O God”.
David is describing the setting, establishing and preparing of the heart for all that it will encounter each day, by fixing it upon the Lord. When God is not central to our life, His place will get pushed aside by other cares, desires, and issues. We become like ships without a rudder that are subject to the prevailing currents around us and we are pulled away from His purposes, principles, and promises.
Paul wrote in Colossians 3:15. “And let the peace of God rule (be the umpire) in your hearts, to the which also you are called, and be thankful.”
When it comes to following our heart, we might be in God’s will, but we may need to get some questions answered first. The umpire of peace is telling you to do more investigating of the situation to clear up those unresolved questions and issues. You won’t have peace, about proceeding until you do.
I recall staying at a minister’s home on my way to a conference that was the next day. I was tired and had no trouble going right off to sleep. At 2:00 in the morning a train came through, blasting it’s horn, and shook be right out of bed. The entire house was shaking with the force of it. I found out the next morning that the tracks were 10 feet from the back of the house. When I mentioned it at breakfast, no one else in the family heard it. They had gotten so used to it, that they no longer heard it! In the same way we can become deaf to the voice of God.
When we have no peace, we may be moving in God’s will, the timing is not right. Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven…He has made everything appropriate in its time.” A lack of peace may mean the umpire is saying you need to wait for further instructions.
When we have no peace, it might be that our heart is not at peace because it isn’t God’s will and the Holy Spirit umpire is telling you no! He is giving a warning that you are heading down the wrong path and if you listen you will be spared a lot of pain.
Psalm 19:7-9 “The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. 8 The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. 9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the LORD are true; they are righteous altogether”.
If you put God first you will never be last…you see, God is described in scripture as having two thrones…. One in the highest heavens and one in the heart of the lowly believer. If we make our heart his throne, we shall never lack His presence and His glory….
Matthew 6:33 “But seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”.
We sing, "Come into my heart, Lord Jesus," but He does not come as some ambiguous spirit. He comes to enthrone Himself in our throne room, and rule in our hearts by His Spirit. Jesus said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you". He that continually guards and renews his heart towards God, dwells continually in God’s throne room. When the heart is kept tuned, the veil is parted and we enter His presence continually.
When God is first in the heart, everything else that we need in life, that is really important and part of our destiny, will be provided….
I must decrease that Christ might increase. It is no longer I but Christ in me, the hope of glory. When our perspective changes, our heart will change. To see our hearts as the place where He chooses to set up his throne, is to once again experience the wonder, amazement, and overwhelming astonishment at His presence. If we have lost touch with the throne room of God, may our hearts be tuned once again, and may we never treat lightly these sacred matters and the special position of a clean heart before God.
