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👉🏼 (Reading: Jeremiah 17:9-11)
📜 ""The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?""
Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV)
📋 The heart can deceive. The heart, more than the organ that pumps blood in our bodies, is known as the receptor of revelation. The heart here refers to the inner attitudes, thoughts, understanding and feelings-in other words, moral conscience.
Thus, the Bible talks about circumcision of the heart, which means having a repented outlook. In what ways can our heart be deceitful? This happens when we become wise in our own eyes to the point of thinking we can outwit God.
When we become conceited and start to look down on others, it is likely our heart is deceiving us. When our text says the heart is deceitful, it suggests we can be misled by our feelings and thoughts which are not based on the knowledge of God.
Pride is a product of a deceitful heart. Proverbs admonishes us to guard our heart with diligence, for from it proceeds matters of life (Proverbs 4:23). When we think wrongly about what we have, we act wrongly.
In the same way, whatever we conceive in our hearts outside the word of God can lead us astray.
We must always examine our hearts in the light of God's word.
What does God say about the condition of your heart?
🔑 Key Lesson: We must guard our heart against deception.
🛐 Meditation and Prayer: Lord, help me to always keep your word in my heart so as not to miss my way.
📚 Further Reading: Matthew 9:4; Isaiah 18:4.
◼️ The Bible in One Year: Psalms 62-68.