Futile Following

God's enemy, Satan, works continuously to block, obscure, mangle, and drown out the Gospel message. His only possible triumph in his cosmic struggle with God would be to stop as many humans as possible from coming to understand the true reality of God's holiness and their sinfulness, the need for a Savior and the gracious provision through Christ, and the simplicity of responding in faith to these truths.

Upon reading Jeremiah 17:9, I am stunned by one of Satan's most successful campaigns. The Bible says:

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?"

Satan has countered this warning with:

"Follow your heart!"

You see, God and Satan both base their statements on the same truth: our spiritual hearts are the wellsprings of our sinful state just as our physical hearts pump blood to the whole body.

Therein lies the danger: see our heart pumps blood all over the body whether it's healthy, anemic, or even infected - the heart just continues pumping what it has to pump. If we want to improve the health of the body we need to purify the blood.

In the same way, our spiritual heart pumps whatever it has to pump, which in our natural state is sinfulness. Since the heart only knows to keep pumping, the adage "Follow your heart" seems as sensible as a doctor telling you: "let blood pump through your body!"

Until we exchange our blood for Christ's, the heart continues to pump its dark material, leaving us utterly lost in sin.

God and Satan both make a statement based on the function of our spiritual heart: whose statement are you going to follow?