Can You Trust Your Heart?
What do Dean Martin and The Kinks have in common? They both sang songs telling us to trust our hearts. Dean Martin crooned, "Only Trust Your Heart," and The Kinks screamed, "Truuuly, truuuly trust your heart!" Disney has been telling us this for years. From Mulan to Tarzan, Disney songs have called us to trust our hearts. Recently, my Dove chocolate told me to trust my heart. Consequently, we are quite prone to trust our hearts, and our hearts are quite willing to deceive us.
The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)
The heart is wily, always pretending to be good, yet desperately wicked. You thought your heart was good, but it fooled you. It also turns out your mother was wrong when she told the police officer you really had a good heart. In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, her heart told her that deep down you were a good boy. Oh, those deceitful hearts, even moms have them.
How does the heart deceive us? Oh, let me count the ways. First, the heart deceives us with respect to sin. The heart tells us sin brings pleasure, never mentioning that the pleasure only lasts a short season, ending in bitterness and death. Our hearts also imagine sin will be profitable. Sin promises a lucrative return, but sin's price is much higher than our hearts told us. "Honor and glory await us in our sin," the heart exclaims, but soon we are humbled with shame and disgrace. Furthermore, the heart tells us sin is liberating; in defying God's law, we hope to find freedom, but sin becomes a cruel taskmaster bringing us into bondage. Thus, the addict is chained to a mistress he alternately loves and loathes as she drags him to destruction.
Second, the heart deceives us about our own love and affections. It tricks us into thinking we love things that really hold no place in our hearts. Our hearts tell us we love the Lord, and we even confess affection for Christ and His kingdom, but the heart's loyalty is actually elsewhere. We say, “Lord, Lord,” but we do not do the will of the Father (Mt.7:21), thus our actions expose the heart’s treachery. If we loved the Lord, we would obey Him (Jn.14:23), but when obedience costs us money, comfort, or the favor of men, we compromise, showing we love these things more than Christ. Dean Martin and Disney are deceived. "He who trusts in his own heart is a fool..." (Prov.28:26)
How can we lie to ourselves, then turn around and gullibly believe our own lies? The heart truly is deceitful above all else and desperately wicked. To make things worse, our hearts dwell right in the center of us. Out of the heart flow our thoughts, our words, and our actions (Mt.7:21). If our hearts continue to deceive us, they may cheat us to our own ruin with the added aggravation of knowing our self-deception destroyed us and no one else is to blame. Our situation is perilous, but what can be done about this deceitful menace that lurks within?
First, the Lord must take our hearts of stone and make them hearts of flesh. He must put a new spirit within us and cause us to walk in His statutes and keep His judgments (Ezek.36:26-27). Without the purifying work of God's Spirit, our evil hearts will continue to beat at enmity with God (Rom.8:7), eventually delivering us to hell all the while comforting and assuring us of a place in heaven.
Second, we must constantly shine the light of God’s word into our hearts. The new heart has remaining sin and is still prone to deception. Thus, the illuminating word of God must continually shine in our hearts to reveal the dark thoughts and intentions that lie hidden there. "The word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Heb.4:12) God knows the hearts of men, thus His word can expose the true thoughts and intentions of our treacherous hearts.
Third, wily-hearted men must find faithful friends willing to apply the sword of God’s word to their lives. If you are alone with your treacherous heart, you will be taken in. The evil that remains in your heart will deceive you and destroy you. Therefore, you need friends willing to wield the scalpel of God's word, friends who will love you enough to tell you when your life is contrary to your confession. You need friends who will see the fruit of your heart (Lk.6:44) and gently correct, reprove, and exhort you in the way of righteousness. You also must be willing to do the same for your friend. This close and regular application of God’s word among friends can expose and restrain the deceptive heart.
Like guards that watch over the walls of a city, faithful friends can keep the deceitfulness of sin from breaching the citadel of your heart. “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called "Today," lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” (Heb.3:12-13)
Cultivating close sanctifying friendships will not be easy, but we must love one another enough to give and take biblical correction. Your heart will say you can love your brother while keeping your distance and you may believe you can maintain purity of your heart without this kind of close fellowship, but your heart deceives you. God, who knows your heart, says, if you are not willing to rebuke your brother, you hate him in your heart (Lev.19:17), and if you are not willing to receive a brother's rebuke, you hate your own soul (Prov.15:32). Do not underestimate the treachery of your own heart, but watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.