Pleasing God, Making Disciples of Jesus Christ

Our Worst Guides To Follow

NUMBER 15:37-41 – The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the LORD your God.”

THEME OF THE DAY. OUR WORST GUIDES TO FOLLOW. In today’s scripture, Moses reveals to us two unreliable and the worst guides to follow in life; our hearts and eyes. Let’s deal with the heart first. It sounds so nice, so right, and it is even promoted, even by well-intended Christians, even by well-intended preachers and pastors to trust our hearts. And if we do, it will always, yes, always, lead to disaster especially spiritual disasters. King Solomon warns us not to do so and the prophet Jeremiah tells us why we are not to do so.

King Solomon – “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6). In the King’s words is the command to refuse to listen and follow our hearts, or our own understanding. As nice, good, and warm as it may sound to give or receive the advice, “Trust your heart. Follow your desires”, we are commanded to avoid such self-reasoning and reliance. Why? The answer to that question comes from the prophet Jeremiah.

Prophet Jeremiah – “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). The prophet is showing us the heart is like water; unstable and goes everywhere. It is not just a little deceitful or as some translations read “desperately wicked” above some things, but all things. What this means is that it knows no depth of deceiving us and leading us astray. Allow me a contemporary illustration. Friends, one of the alarming trends we see in our western world of Christianity is the lack of awareness of the seriousness of sin and God’s holiness. Take a brief self-assessment. When is the last time we read a Christian book, blog, article or heard a sermon exclusive on the topics of repentance, the heinousness of sin, God’s holiness, and His righteous anger over sin? There is a lot proclaimed in social media, from pulpits, and on Christians bookshelves on Christian self-improvement, the love of God, self-fulfillment in Jesus, and a host of other things making Christianity, even Christ, self-serving and all about us. What is noticeably absent is the holiness of God, the awfulness of sin, the call to self-denial, embracing suffering as a good soldier of Christ, and the awareness that discipleship is death to self, not satisfying self. These trends might be easily traced back to following the desires of our heart and the remaining sin in our hearts. Remember our remaining sin in our heart never wants to hear of holiness, the awfulness of sin, or Jesus’ call, “Take up your cross, die to self, and follow me.” It wants to hear “the good side” of Christianity. So, don’t trust our hearts. It will lead us into bad spiritual places.

Moses reveals the second unreliable and other worst guide to follow in life – our eyes. If we allow our eyes to look on the wrong things, it will lead the heart to the sins of lust, covetousness, and loving the pleasures of the world more than God. Were not the eyes of Eve on the fruit in the Garden of Eden the beginning of her downfall – “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.” (Genesis 3:6)? The Apostle John writes, “the desires of the eyes are not from the Father but from the world” (1 John 2:16). Let the eyes wander and sin will creep through them into our hearts and lives. Don’t let the eyes guide us. We will be taken to bad places.

We live in deceptively dangerous times. We need wisdom and guidance. Let’s just make sure they don’t come from our hearts and eyes.

PRAYER: “Father, protect me from the ease of trusting my sinful heart.”

QUOTE: “Don’t trust your heart; it will lead your astray and watch what you look at; it may lead to covetousness.”