Okay, I know.
About 92% of you just gasped and are ready to say, "Well, you know Shauna, the Bible says in Jeremiah 17:9, 'the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?' HELLO?!"
Let's do a study together, shall we? Really quick, even!
The Hebrew word where we use "deceitful" is the word, "`aqob". It is used only 2 times in Scripture and can also be translated, "slippery, steep, hilly, foot-tracked". Imagine if we translated this passage with those definitions?
Let's also look at what's going on in this passage in Jeremiah.
First off, Jeremiah was a prophet during Old Testament times, even during the destruction of Jerusalem. He was sent specifically to Israel (unless otherwise stated), to warn, rebuke and encourage ("to pluck up and to break down...to build and to plant". (1:10)
Let's now zoom in to chapter 17.
The verses before it are, "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He like a tree planted by water... It does not fear when heat comes... and is not anxious... it does not cease to bear fruit." (v7-8). Now, the verses before that (5-6) are in the negative and then Jeremiah says in verse 9 those famous words that we are now studying.
But what about the verses after?
I'm so glad you asked.
"I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds. (v10)
So even in just a quick glance we get a bigger and better picture of what is going on. Jeremiah is not saying to all of us today that our hearts are deceitful, wicked and beyond repair. Jeremiah is saying that Israel and us have a choice: to repent and serve God and be blessed by honoring Him, or to continue in our ways and see destruction. Because God will give to every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.
To further prove this thought and conclusion, let us just read even a few more verses about what God says about our hearts throughout the rest of Scripture. (Again, these are just a few.)
From the Old Covenant/ Under the Law:
Proverbs 3:5 - Trust in the Lord with all your heart [but lean not on your own understanding]...
Proverbs 4:23 - Guard your heart, for everything you do flows from [your heart]...
Psalm 51:10 - Create in me a new heart...
Psalm 73:26 - My heart and flesh my fail, but God is the strength of my heart...
Psalm 37:4 - Take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart...
Ezekiel 36:26 - I will give you a new heart and... give you a heart of flesh.
From the New Covenant/ Under Grace
Matthew 5:8 - Blessed are the pure in heart [for they shall see God]
Matthew 22:37 - Love the Lord God with all your heart...
Matthew 6:21 - For where your treasure is, there is your heart also...
Romans 5:5 - And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts...
So, do you see what I mean?
How could our hearts be deceptively wicked but yet, we are supposed to trust the Lord with them? Why would we need to guard them? How could God be the strength of our [wicked] hearts? How could we desire and receive those desires if our hearts are wicked? Why would God bless our hearts? How could we love God with all of our hearts? How could our treasure lie in our hearts? How could God's love be shed into our wicked hearts?
So at the very least, from what we can see even just from these verses... our hearts can and are changed upon salvation. (And in the Old Testament, being renewed, as the Holy Spirit did not indwell, but came upon the righteous.)
I understand what people are trying to say when they say that our hearts are wicked. That sin is our livelihood until we give our lives to God. But what many are also saying when using this verse is that emotions are bad but there could be nothing further from the truth.
Now to make life-altering decisions solely based on emotions, sure, absolutely: Don't do it! But sadly, the Church has almost swung in the opposite direction (though, as of very recently, the pendulum is slowing coming back the other way). The Church for too long has stood on principle and run people over. From the Pharisees to today even there have been those that have taught [us] to eliminate our emotions or put our emotions on the back-burner and just do what is right.
I propose to you that this mindset is from the pit of hell.
It is what Job's friends did to him and God wanted to slay all three of them.
It is what the Pharisees did in their pompous pride and refusal to have and show compassion unless it somehow benefited them... and we all know how Jesus felt about the Pharisees.
Scripture is full of the statements and mentality of "there is safety in a multitude of counselors" but hopefully I have challenged the view point of believing that emotions are wrong, sinful and/or something to run from. In fact, David was called a man after God's own heart, and is there anyone more emotional than David? He fought anger, depression and pride of course, but he also danced because of God's victories and loved God's laws more than anything else in his life (most of the time).
I'll even challenge you with this: in those moments where you are feeling deep-rooted emotions, stop and ask the Lord to help you discern why you're feeling what you're feeling and what He has for you in it.
Perhaps it's fear showing up as anger.
Perhaps it's pride.
Perhaps it's sadness.
Perhaps it's that you've come to believe that God doesn't really want you to be happy, so you try to not hang on to it for fear that God will take it away someday.
Perhaps it's.....you name it.
According to Scripture God... laughs. is angry. (In His defense, He gets to be righteously angry, but the Apostle Paul says we can be angry too.) God is love. God cried. (Perhaps He still does...) God got tired. (Note: Jesus needing places to stay and eat.)
Beloved, don't fear your emotions.
Let your emotions serve you. Don't serve your emotions.
Ask what your emotions are about and for and surrender to the Lord in wisdom.
And please, PLEASE stop taking Scripture out of context.
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(Because even in this instance, I believe this topic and horrific explanation of this verse is a small sliver why many men in the Church are anti-women. They see [us] strictly emotional beings without logic. (But I digress, as that is a subject for one of my next posts...)
