You have heard it said many times before, “Just follow your heart.” That statement sounds so warm and fuzzy, but according to God, it is one of the worst and most dangerous pieces of advice you could ever get or give when it comes to matters of absolute truth with eternal significance.
The prophet Jeremiah wrote: “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is (Jeremiah 17:9)? Translation: The heart is not the solution—it’s usually the HEART of the problem.
“Follow your heart” is really code for “Follow your feelings.” You can believe something to be true, but that doesn’t make it true. What sounds true will not set you free. Only “the truth will set you free.” Following your feelings can be incredibly dangerous. Mark Twain once said, “It isn’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just isn’t so that gets you into trouble.”
It doesn’t matter how much you believe something in your heart, or how long you have believed it “with all your heart”—sincerity alone will not guarantee that you are doing the right thing. In fact, you can believe your way into bondage, and disaster. Solomon stated it plainly, “There is a way that seems right to a person, but in the end, it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12).
When popular sayings and clichés like “just follow your heart” don’t pan out—people sometimes get mad at God, because they have falsely believed that “follow your heart” is in the Bible. God never once said in the Bible, “Just follow your heart.” In fact, He said just the opposite: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5). “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
Scripture is clear that our heart is not a trustworthy moral compass. “Follow Your Heart” is a humanistic statement that assumes we have within ourselves the inner moral compass to choose the best and most noble thing with no direction from God. The truth is we have an amazing capacity to underestimate how much we overestimate ourselves, in our ability to guide our own steps to right or wrong. Jeremiah 10:23 – “O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.” People lead themselves astray by following their own path, instead of staying on the path that God has laid out in His word.
Paul reflected on the rebellion of all humanity, and how God abandons us when we fail to follow him: Romans 1:24 – God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. What a terrible thought—to be abandoned by God. Wake up America. God's clock to eternity is ticking loudly.
Jesus once said, “For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander” (Matthew 15:19). It’s amazing how many sins people can justify in their own minds by following their own heart instead of God's directions.
When we follow our feelings instead of God’s truth, it is possible for us to feel total peace in our hearts while we are doing things that are totally wrong and sinful. We just convince ourselves using feelings as our guide that things are right when in reality, they are very wrong. Sometimes we are just sincerely wrong.
In the book of Acts, Paul said his conscience was totally clear when he was throwing Christians in prison and having them killed. Later he repented when he learned the truth. I have known people who walked out on their spouse and children to go have an affair with someone they have convinced themselves they’ve fallen in love with, or that “God has brought into my life.” Please! God doesn’t want credit for your chosen sinful decisions that leads to your own destruction.
On more than one occasion people like this have said to me, “I don’t think it’s wrong to follow my heart because doesn’t the Bible say that it’s the heart that matters most?” No, the Bible does not say, “it’s the heart that matters most.” I beg you to never do anything just because you feel like your heart is telling you to do it. Yes, our heart has a voice in our lives in the decisions we make, but it should always be seen as a yellow caution light. Our feelings should never be given the final say in our lives. People sometimes say, "You'll know it's right when you feel it." God never said that. It's a manmade "scripture."
If we keep doing things we think our heart is telling us to do, and we do it long enough, our heart will eventually become fine with it, justify it, or become hard and continue doing it, even though what your heart is telling you to do is clearly against God’s stated will in the Bible. We can actually convince our hearts that something is right, simply because we don’t want it to be wrong.
There is a song from the past that illustrates this point. One verse in the song goes like this: “If loving you is wrong I don’t want to be right.” Now that is a person who is sold out to their feelings instead of the actual stated word of God in the Bible. A man came into my office once who was having an affair that no one knew about but me. He justified the affair by talking about how he had "fallen out of love with his wife," and in love with "a woman that God has brought into my life." He actually stated, "I feel the blooded of Jesus rolling down my back every time I make love to her." Wow! Wow! Wow! That's how deceptive the heart can be, and Satan loves it.
In the end the heart doesn’t need to be followed—it needs to be led—led by the word and Spirit of God. You can train your heart to go where it needs to go, not just where it feels like going. You can disciple and discipline your heart.
The importance of letting your heart be led by God instead of being led by feelings can be seen in what Jesus said in Luke 12:34 - “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” On another occasion Jesus didn’t say, ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled, believe in your hearts.’ What he did say was, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, believe in me.”
You do not follow your heart as a way to obey God. You decide to obey God, and then let your heart catch up and follow. The heart does not tell us what is right. Only God can do that through His stated will found in the Bible.
“Follow your heart” is not in the Bible. In fact, the Bible says just the opposite. You will not do the right things or make the best decisions in life simply because you followed your heart, but because you chose to "walk in the light as he is in the light." --Steve
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