Don't trust your heart. Jeremiah chapter 17, verse 9. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Few cultural slogans sound more virtuous, yet are more dangerous than, always trust your heart. This destructive error is universally preached from the God-hating world, and from many pulpits. The heart, we are told, is pure, authentic, and trustworthy. Follow it, and you will find truth, freedom, happiness, and fulfillment.

Scripture speaks with a radically different voice. It never flatters the human heart, but exposes it. God's Word declares that the heart is not merely untrustworthy, but deceptive and wicked. Here we see the sharp conflict between biblical wisdom and cultural foolishness. The world says, trust your heart. God says, your heart is the problem.

In scripture, the heart refers to the essence of the person. It includes the mind, the will, the desires, the emotions, and the moral reasoning. To say that the heart is deceitful means that it lies. especially to its owner. To say that it is desperately wicked means it is morally corrupt and beyond self-repair. Hence the real problem with each of us is our deceptive and wicked heart. Self-deception is our greatest danger. Our heart's deceit is both pervasive and persuasive.

Jesus himself affirmed Jeremiah's diagnosis. For from within the hearts of men come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance, and foolishness. All these evils come from within, and these are what defile a man.

Our culture promotes the heart as a reliable compass. Scripture reveals it as a faulty and broken instrument. When emotions are elevated above God's Word, then feelings become functional gods. Our feelings are never a reliable guide to truth. Emotions respond to perceptions, not reality. Wisdom submits emotions to God's truth, not truth to emotions. God's Word, not inner impressions, is the standard of truth. The heart must be judged by Scripture, not vice versa.

Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. The Gospel does not rehabilitate the old heart, it replaces it. Those who sincerely trust in Jesus are given new desires, new affections, and a new standard of truth. Yet even then, Scripture never commands believers to trust their hearts, but to test everything by the Word.

Do not trust your heart. Trust the God who exposes it, redeems it, and rules over it, for His glory and your eternal good.

Charles Spurgeon

We cannot think a good thought, speak a good word, or do a good act, apart from divine grace. The heart is evil and only evil, and that continually. Man's heart is a den of unclean birds, a nest of vipers, a foul stable for all kinds of abominations. The heart of man is desperately wicked, and if it were not restrained by God's grace, it would be a very hell. He who trusts in his own heart is a fool.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.