We have come to (arguably) the most famous verse in all of Jeremiah:
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
Jeremiah 17:9 ESV
The “heart” is the word leb in Hebrew.
We westerners like to be all analytical and divide the inner man into neat boxes of mind/intellect, will, and emotions. Hebrew is not so tidy. The two letters are…
Lamed – shepherd staff, guide, lead, to/toward, protect
Bet – house, in/inside
Leb is what you call the guide on the inside.
The wisdom of the world says to “Follow your heart.” But, unless The Good Shepherd is leading from the inside, the heart can get us into all kinds of trouble. And we wouldn’t see the trouble coming because the heart can trick us. Everything seems and feels so “right” when it’s actually so wrong.
Jeremiah sets 2 worldview choices before us:
- Trust the heart of man
- Trust the heart of God
I think the default setting for humanity is to trust ourselves and other people. But we are flawed. Most of us acknowledge this when we say, “Nobody’s perfect.” What we mean by that is, “Don’t judge me for making a mistake or a bad decision. Other people are just as bad.”
So why would we think that another deeply flawed human being can meet the deepest needs of our hearts for love and truth, meaning, purpose, significance and security?
But people do it all the time. Christians too.
The easiest way (IMO) to find out in what areas I’m trusting the heart of man (including myself) more than I’m trusting the heart of the Father, is to look at my disappointments.
I recommend taking these questions VERY slowly… Spend some time here. Perhaps pray and ask the Lord for grace to poke around in some deep places. I’m not a therapist. But these questions have helped me examine my tricky heart. I hope they help you too.
Deep breath…
What situation or person let me down?
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What did I expect they would do for me?
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What did I believe would happen if I got what I wanted or expected?
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Am I still putting my hope in a particular outcome? That- if I get THAT, then I’ll be whole? Happy? I’ll matter in the world?
Who alone can actually make me whole?
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The Apostle John wrote about love and the heart more than any other Apostle. He connects keeping the “Law of Love” to the level of confidence (or condemnation) of our hearts:
“Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.”
1 John 3:18-24 ESV
If the heart is struggling with condemnation, here’s what we check:
- Am I fully trusting in the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ?
- Am I TRULY loving others with my actions, not just my words?
The more I lean into trusting Christ for the salvation and sanctification of my soul and the more I choose to truly love the people around me with my deeds, I will “reassure” my heart before the Lord.
Have you ever reassured a frightened child? Perhaps in a thunder storm?
You know that they are safe. You know that the thunder will not knock the house down. You have knowledge that they do not have. This knowledge and experience of surviving many previous thunderstorms gives you a different perspective. A calm perspective.
The way we reassure our anxious hearts, or hearts that condemn us with “You’re not good enough,” is to stop trusting our heart and trust the heart of Jesus.
Stop believing your deceitful heart.
Instead, believe the Good News.
“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:36 ESV
Stop trusting in your own efforts to get healed, whole, fixed, righteous, or perfected. Is Jesus your Savior? Or you?
Instead, lean in to the finished work of Christ and share the love you have been shown.
It may seem like Jeremiah is shifting gears when Yahweh sends him to the gate of Jerusalem to preach about keeping the Sabbath, but it isn’t. Repeatedly, Jeremiah tells the people that they are not to “bear a burden” on the Sabbath. There is more going on here for us than a rule to not be schlepping boxes around on a Saturday.
The writer of Hebrews unpacks the spiritual dimension of the Sabbath – the rest for our souls that Jesus promised. He writes of the children of Israel who did not enter the rest of the Promised Land when they first arrived because they did not rest (trust) in the LORD and His power to give them victory over the giants.
Read this closely:
“For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.”
Hebrews 4:2-3, 9-10 ESV
So much of the time, our solution for anxious, condemning hearts is “Try harder! Learn more! Do more!”
Beloved, it’s all done.
God’s great works have been finished since the foundation of the world. Put that burden down! If you have entered into the rest of Christ, then remember the Sabbath. Remember that the work of YOUR redemption is DONE.
“But I don’t feel like it’s done!”
Ok. Whose heart are we trusting here? Yours or God’s?
See? It’s sneaky isn’t it?
Stop carrying your burdens and enter into the Sabbath rest of the LORD. It’s ALL done. Finished. Trust Him. Quit carrying burdens on the Lord’s Sabbath. To be in Christ is to be in a permanent Sabbath for your soul. You don’t just lay the burdens down for one day. Every day is a day of completion and rest in Christ. He IS our completion. You are complete in Him, (Col. 2:10).
You might just close your eyes a moment and let this sink in.
To The Reader 