Proverbs 28:26 commentary; do you trust your heart?

26 ¶ He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered.

I can remember in the 1970’s the mantra was all about following your heart, doing your own thing, blah blah blah. It was the battle cry of idiots. We have had generations of Christians who have trashed their lives and hurt the lives of their children by replacing what is right and what does God want me to do with how do I feel about this or that.

Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. 6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

There is a problem with the human heart, at least the spiritual and emotional one we refer to when we talk about the seat of our emotions and desires.

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Your heart is not just wicked. It is desperately wicked. It’s wicked in a way that a person is desperate when they are trapped in a burning building. In some of the more horrible nightclub fires it’s been a known fact that people trapped in a tangle of bodies will actually pull an attempted rescuer in to his death, much like a drowning victim will drown an attempted rescuer, in unthinking desperation. Your heart desperately craves sin. It is of the flesh. Never follow your heart unless it is firmly in Christ’s hands. Then you can follow Christ. I didn’t say “imitate” as in pretend to be or mimic as some of the modern Bible perversions read but follow. Seek not to imitate Him but to obey Him and to do things that He would want you to do in the way He would want you to do them.

Walk wisely in Christ. Do not trust in your own heart but put your trust in Christ’s heart. Deliverance from day to day sin or even Hell does not come from following or trusting in your heart. It comes with first trusting in Christ and then letting His word change you day by day.