Proverbs 3.5-8
“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. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.”
We are living in an era of the imperial self. People have always been self-centered, but it has become socially normative in our generation to be radically self-centered. Many believe they have the mandate to create their own “truth” and establish their own standards of right and wrong.
This was the problem in Israel in the time of the prophets. The leaders of Israel turned away from the covenant with the Lord and embraced false gods. They rejected God’s standards and lived by their own standards.
The prophet Jeremiah warned the leaders and people of Judah to repent of their self-centeredness. Like Solomon, Jeremiah told the people of Judah to trust God, not self. He warned that those who trust in self will not prosper:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.” (Jeremiah 17.5-6)
Jeremiah said that those who trust in the Lord will be blessed:
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” (Jeremiah 17.7-8)
Jeremiah then gives an extremely important warning: Be careful about “following your heart,” because the heart can be very selfish. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17.9)
The apostle Paul understood the primacy of the mind, and he gives this admonition in the book of Ephesians: “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus.” (Ephesians 4:17-21)
The human heart was damaged at the fall, and as a result has selfish and deceitful tendencies. The unredeemed heart — the old nature — cannot be trusted. In order to operate as the Lord intends, our hearts must be redeemed and regenerated by Christ, and our minds must be renewed by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
This is the message in the next passage of Ephesians: “Put off your old nature, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and, being renewed in the spirit of your minds, put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:22-24)
In other words, trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not trust in your own insight. Don’t be wise in your own eyes. Like I said yesterday, don’t believe everything you think.
What is truth and where does it come from?
By what standards do you live and work?
What reference points do you use for right and wrong?
These are the most important questions of our time. How you answer has eternal consequences.
“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.” (Jeremiah 17.9-10)
