The Heart That Follows Christ


Religion without heart, even true Gospel religion, is nothing more than hypocrisy (see Isaiah 29:13 ; Matthew 15:8). We must trust, follow and worship the Lord from the heart – with a sincere, honest heart, a convicted, broken and contrite heart - “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:22).

Yet, we are told in God’s Word that we cannot follow our hearts. Why? Because “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Our natural hearts can and will deceive us. This is why we must be given by the Holy Spirit in the new birth “a new heart and a new spirit” (Ezekiel 18:31; 36:26). But even the new heart must be guided by God’s Word.

Even as born again sinners we cannot follow our hearts. We must submit our hearts to God’s judgments and ways revealed in His Word as we are continually led to and guided by Christ and His truth - “I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings” (Jeremiah 17:10).

When God saves a sinner, that sinner’s new heart, the regenerated heart, must continually be “renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him” (Colossians 3:10). This is growth in grace and in knowledge of Christ.


-Gospel report by preacher Bill Parker

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