The world continually tells us to follow our hearts. But what does the Bible say about this advice?
According to the Bible, “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Evil, sin, and selfishness reside in all people’s hearts (“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23). The evil within people’s hearts compels them to act unrighteously, to care only about themselves, or to hurt others—evil actions aren’t merely external actions; they originate from the evil in one’s heart. An evil heart causes evil behavior. Jesus explains, “‘But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, false testimony, slander. These are what defiles a person, but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them’” (Matthew 15:18-20). Adultery, lying, selfishness, sexual immorality, hatred, murder, greed, gossip, slander, or any other sins come from the evil in someone’s heart.
If an individual has evil in his/her heart, he/she will behave in a sinful way; if a person has righteousness in his/her heart, he/she will obey God and act righteously. Jesus tells us, “‘For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, 44 for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. 45 The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks’” (Luke 6:43-45). Similarly, “As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man” (Proverbs 27:19).
If all people have sinned and therefore all people have evil in their hearts, how do we attain a righteous heart so that we can obey God and act righteously? To behave righteously and truly follow God, we can’t merely change our external behavior. We need a heart change.
Paul describes the impossible struggle of merely trying to change our external actions in order to behave righteously and obey God’s laws (Romans 7:18-20):
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
Since we all have a sinful nature, we can’t simply resolve to change our own hearts by our own efforts to stop sinning. We need Jesus to change our hearts by faith. Unless we allow Jesus to change our hearts, we will always fail to obey God’s laws because our sinful nature will take over, as Paul explains above.
Hebrews 10:15-16 describes God’s covenant with us through Jesus: “And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds.’”
Furthermore, God explains (Ezekiel36:25-27):
“Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.[a] 27 And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.”
In other words, when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior by faith, God changes our hearts so that we will desire obey Him; He writes His laws on our hearts and minds and gives us His Holy Spirit to guide us to obey Him. The Holy Spirit will convict us of sin and help us to choose to obey God’s commandments. Jesus strengthens us to reject the evil desires of our sinful nature. Psalm 73:26 says, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” By our own efforts, we are unable to obey God’s commands and do what is right. However, when Jesus comes into our hearts and changes us, He strengthens us to obey God. When our hearts become tempted to sin, Jesus provides a way out of sin so that we can reject the temptation and obey God instead (1 Corinthians 10:13).
Jesus also gives us the ability to desire God’s will for our lives: “Delight yourself in Yahweh, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). When we want what God wants for us, He gives it to us. He would never give people the evil desires of their hearts! As God’s servants, it’s important to align our hearts and desires with God’s. We must be humble enough to open our hearts to God’s testing to ensure that we are aligned with Him and truly delighting in Him instead of entertaining our sinful nature.
As believers, we should have the same attitude as David in Psalm 139. We should pray, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24). In other words, we need to ask God to reveal anything in our hearts that offends him, any bitterness, lust, unforgiveness, selfishness, slander, or any other unrighteousness in our hearts. We need to allow Him to remove anything from our lives or hearts that distracts us from obeying His will or delighting in Him in our hearts. The heart cannot serve two masters; it serves either God or our sinful nature. Therefore, we need to be willing to allow God to refine our hearts and take away anything that pulls us away from Him. If we have been sinning through our actions, we can be sure that there is something in our hearts that we need to repent of and allow God to change. The process of sanctification is a lifelong process in which God refines our hearts and molds them to be like the heart of Jesus, full of pure love and obedience to God’s commandments. We need to be open to God’s rebuke and correction so that He can change our hearts and accomplish all that He wills to do in and through us. The purpose God gives each of us is greater than anything we can imagine. The strength Jesus gives us to accomplish it is more powerful than any obstacle we face. We don’t want to miss out on doing something truly great for God’s kingdom because we chose to follow the whims of our sinful nature instead of following God’s will.
As Christians we need to reject the world’s message to “follow your heart” and the fickle, sinful desires that originate from it. Instead let us strive to follow God’s will and the desires He places on our hearts through the strength that Jesus provides.
