The heart is deceitful and not worth following. Let’s replace a foolish heart-following with a bold and Biblical heart-leading. God gives us new hearts in Christ, and we are no longer bound to obey sin, so we can actually lead our hearts in a way that pleases God. 

It is popular to say (and mock) the cliché, “Follow your heart.” And while I’d love to mock the idea with all of you, I thought it might be better to provide an alternative. Honestly, it’s pretty easy to give the alternative, because the Bible gives the alternative. But before I do that, the Bible makes it plain that the heart is not to be followed. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (Jer 17:9). That deceitful heart is not to be trusted. So if we aren’t to follow our hearts, then what should we do?
Get a New Heart
The first thing that needs to happen is that you need to get a new heart. That old heart is deceitful and crooked. It doesn’t need to be reformed, it needs to be replaced. And by God’s grace, when someone turns to Christ for salvation, a spiritual heart transplant happens. “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Eze 36:26). God has promised to remove that old, stony heart and replace it with a real, living heart. This new heart has new affections and new desires, and now has the capacity to respond to God in His word. If you don’t have this new heart, nothing else I say in this post will matter. So if you are not a Christian, stop here. The next bit of information is impossible without a new heart. Repent and believe the gospel. God always gives that new heart to those who turn from their sins and trust in the finished work of Christ.
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Faith in God, admiration of virtue, respect for the institutions of marriage and family, and love for learning and discerning truth…were once commonplace convictions in Western civilization; now they are rarer than a white tiger. Nevertheless, our need for them has never been greater, and the men and women who are taught to cling to these as children will one day stand in greatness, even if they never set foot on Harvard’s campus.

The other day, Harvard senior Julie Hartman wrote a brief tale in the Wall Street Journal about what has been happening on that revered campus since COVID landed its microscopic self on American shores. She and her classmates have been denied the norms of campus life, treated instead to mask-wearing, social distancing, and endless COVID tests. But that’s no big deal, because students across the country have been subjected to similar protocols, right?
That’s wrong, according to Hartman. She points out that students at Harvard are often viewed as the leaders of the next generation, for that institution has been producing great men for centuries. “We may be the future decision makers,” she writes, “but most of us aren’t leaders. Our principal concern is becoming members of the American elite, with whatever compromises, concessions and conformity that requires.” In essence, Harvard students are simply the same cookie-cutter automatons that so many institutions produce today. Hartman concludes by saying that such a lack of opposition to “these irrational bureaucratic excesses bodes ill for our ability to meet future challenges.”
If today’s institutions aren’t producing great men and women, how can we average folks pick up the slack and do their work for them? And if we’re going to do that, just what exactly is it that makes a great man or woman? One of Harvard’s former professors, philosopher George Santayana, had some thoughts on the matter in his work, Winds of Doctrine.
Santayana first diagnosed the reason why we don’t have great men: moral chaos. “When chaos has penetrated so far into the moral being of nations,” he wrote, “they can hardly be expected to produce great men.” This observation, made in 1926, certainly checks out with our present-day society. From rioting in the streets to election irregularities, to gender confusion, to irrational and flip-flopping COVID mandates, we’ve experienced a full range of chaos penetrating our moral being in the last few years.
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Someone rightly said, “If all people see is you and your efforts to build a platform, then you are stealing the show.” The clamour for people’s attention in a minister should be of concern. With the rise of social media, the temptation is ever real. Where does one draw the line? On the one hand, it is a wonderful tool for ministry. On the other, the dangers of self-praise are ever-present. Every man knows the motives behind his actions. One famous prayer should be every minister’s. Each line starts with the refrain, “Not I, but Christ.”

John the Baptist is a fascinating character. He plays an essential role in the narrative of the Gospels. Yet he is so peripheral we often don’t pay attention to him. Almost always, you hear him mentioned; it is, by the way, which was the role God intended him to play all along. Every time John speaks, he is pointing to Christ and deflecting focus from himself.
Interestingly, Jesus called him the greatest man that ever lived; only, at the same time, the least in the kingdom (Matthew 11:11). John the Baptist was always humble in his self-assessment. Notice the phrases used to refer to or describe him: he was not the light; I am not the Christ, nor Elijah or the prophet; a voice in the wilderness; and I must decrease. Finally he ended up in prison and beheaded. It is not a glamorous ministry. Neither is it one you crave. Yet John, by Christ’s estimations, was the greatest.
What lessons can we learn from the life and ministry of John the Baptist?
Ministerial Platforms Come from God
John answers, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven” (John 3:27).
This perspective of life and ministry will save many of us from envy of other people’s success and from jostling for attention and praise from people. Ministry platforms and opportunities come from God, and they are to be used for him, not self-promotion or exaltation.
This perspective will also ensure that you are content with your ministry, whether it is celebrated or little-known. Christians with this perspective are satisfied with being forgotten. They recognise a difference between proclaiming and promoting the cause of Christ and promotion of self. Oh, for wisdom to know the difference.
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