Listen to your heart and your mind: Proverbs 3:5 and Jeremiah 17:9

Can you trust your heart? Can you trust your mind? It's really important to know what this means. Sometimes you will hear Christians trying to convince you that your heart and your mind can't be trusted. They will use these two verses in a bad way without understanding what they mean to trick you into thinking badly about yourself. I will show you that the real meaning is the opposite of what most people say. In fact, these verses actually encourage you to use your heart and mind together to trust in God. God gave us the ability to think for ourselves. God gave us a conscience so that we know what is good and what is evil. When we use heart and mind together, we can do what God wants us to do. 

Jeremiah 17:9-10 "The human mind is more deceitful than anything else. It is incurably bad. Who can understand it?
I, the Lord, probe into people’s minds. I examine people’s hearts. I deal with each person according to how he has behaved. I give them what they deserve based on what they have done."

Proverbs 3:5 
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Welcome to the Real Bible Rob teamcast. And I'm going to give you a little bit of advice today. I think it's really helpful to listen to your heart and your mind. When you're making decisions, when you're thinking about what's good, what's evil, what's the right thing to do, what's not the right thing to do. And a lot of people will kind of mislead you into thinking that you can't listen to your heart. You can't trust it. You can't listen to your mind or lean in what they call lean into your own understanding because that somehow you're too corrupt or you aren't able to do that yourself, that you should just trust in God. What I'm going to do is kind of go through the two main verses that people use for this and try to help you understand that trusting in God is actually listening to your heart and listening to your mind, and that you have to kind of put those two things together. And it's really important because uh a lot of times when you are in a church or you have you're talking to people that don't really understand scripture very well, they'll try to convince you that no, you you can't trust yourself at all. I'll talk a little bit about where that comes from, and then I'll talk a little bit about how people use that. And then hopefully, when you by hearing this, you'll be able to say, yeah, it's really I can trust it. Not everything I believe is uh is right, not everything I feel is right, but when you put those two things together and you do that in trusting in God and do it as an act of trusting God, that you can be much more assured that you are doing the right thing, that you are making good decisions. And and if you don't, for whatever reason, don't make a good decision or something bad happens, that you can pick yourself up again and you can move forward. So this is kind of more of a practical advice uh team cast than uh than usual. So uh let's all get started by talking about those two main verses, and you'll hear but hear them a lot in um in churches because pastors will sometimes will say the heart is deceitful, and will say, Don't lean into your own understanding. And when they do this, they're um taking a little piece of scripture, they're using Jeremiah 17, verse 9, and they're using Proverbs 3, verse 5, to kind of um play a trick on you a little bit. And uh, I want to reveal what that trick is, because there's what they're trying to do is trying to make it that you don't trust your own intuition, you don't trust yourself in order so that they can tell you something that they want you to believe instead of um you know being able to think for yourself and discern for yourself, listen to your heart as well. And this is a really common problem, and I really want you to be aware of it when you do that. A lot of times when you go to things like Christian camps or you go to Christian Bible studies or things like that, sometimes they use this idea of kind of breaking you down a little bit to say, you know, you really can't trust yourself, and you know the the um the devil is working on you, and you know, you've got to listen to God and trust in God and Holy Spirit. And um the problem with that is that they're kind of breaking you down so they can fill you with their ideas. Instead of saying, yeah, okay, there is trust in God, there is evil in the world. Uh yeah, maybe the devil is working on us, but it's not the way that you think, and you really shouldn't use these verses to do it. So let's start with that first verse, uh um uh Jeremiah 17, 9. And this is uh something where it says, the heart is wicked um above all else, or it depends on the translation, because it's a hard translation to do from the original Hebrew, but the heart is deceitful. Who can trust it? And all kinds of terrible things come from the heart. Um, and then there's this verse called uh Proverbs 3, 5, and it says, Lean, trust in God, do not lean into your own understanding. So when you take these two together, and they almost always quote them together, because they're saying, Don't trust your heart or your mind or your own understanding. And um, so that what do you have? What else do you have? You have your heart and your mind, and you uh and they're saying, well, only trust in God. And that's good to trust in God, except when they say don't trust your heart and your mind, only trust in God, they're saying, just believe what I'm gonna tell you rather than how God speaks to you in your heart and your mind. Because that's a very important thing. How do we know good from bad? How do we know this? Well, it's because in our hearts, we've been given that ability to know what's good and know what's bad. We hear it from our parents, we hear it from our teachers, we hear it from many different people. But when we come into a situation where we have to make a decision, how do you know? Because you're not going to have your parents or your teachers or things that you've read, or you have your Bible in front of you when you're making uh a decision about things all the time. But you know what's good in your heart because you were taught that way. And because inside your heart you have been given the ability to know good right from wrong. So let's go into these two cer uh verses and what they mean in Hebrew, because they were both written in Hebrew. The first one, uh, Jeremiah 17, 9, um, is a hard verse to translate from Hebrew because the word that they use for heart doesn't mean what we think it means. We think of the heart as being this place where you feel warm, you feel emotion, you feel sadness, you feel joy in your heart. But in the Hebrew mind, in it, the Israelites thought of the heart as the place where you thought from, your seat of reason. This is where you you think from. It's very different. They didn't think of the brain that way. They thought of the heart being the place where you thought from and where you calculated things from, where you decided things from. And um, they actually thought that the um that the emotional part, you know, the way you feel love or or hate or you feel um um sadness or joy comes from the kidneys or the guts. So they kind of thought the guts were where your um, you know, that gut feel. Um that they thought that was where your emotions were, and that your heart was the part that you thought from. So when you take these verses and you take those words, the word for heart in Hebrew is levav, um, and the word for kidneys is a word called kilayot. And um, the uh because they have a different meaning than what we think they have, um, the people who made these translations who made the Bible into English, they had to make a lot of choices about how to do the words. But I think that you can really uh there are some translations that are really good and some that are really bad. The one that I think is the best for this verse, for Jeremiah 17, 9, and I'm gonna include verse 10 because it kind of explains how you use the heart and mind. So it is it's called the NET Bible, the New English Translation Bible, and it's a really great Bible for certain kinds of um reading. And it says the human mind is more deceitful than anything else, it's incurably bad. Who can understand it? I, the Lord, probe into people's minds, I examine people's hearts, I deal with each person according to how he has behaved. I give them what they deserve based on what they have done. So that's pretty clear, isn't it? That's that's it's an easier way to understand it, just to say it it and what it really means in where it is in Jeremiah. I'll give you a little bit of background, part of the story for this. The story is that Jeremiah is telling kings, the key and kings in um in Jerusalem, he's saying, Don't go fight with the Babylonians, don't go fight with these other people over here. I know you really want to, I know you really think that's a good idea, but I'm telling you that God does not want you to fight with them. And you're because your mind, all of the things, all the reasons that you're coming up with to go fight with them, is you're you're deceiving yourself. Now, isn't that funny? Because we kind of do that ourselves, right? We can talk ourselves into almost anything. We can say that if we really want something, right? Or if we really want to do something bad, um, we can convince ourselves, we can convince our minds to say, you know, this is the best thing to do, and this is the reason why I want to do it, and I'm gonna do it anyway. Well, that's what Jeremiah is talking about with the with these kings. He says, You're thinking that this is a smart thing to do, but it's not. You're being deceived. And you, if you only trust in your mind, only trust in your head, you're gonna make a bad decision. So that's why he talked later about that uh God says, I examine, uh look into people's minds, and I also examine or look into people's hearts. He's saying you have to have both. Is that you use your conscience? There's another translation out there that talks about the word conscience, and you've probably heard that. You know, conscience is that feeling you have inside when you see something's wrong and it feels bad inside. You know, your conscience is a way to um decide if what you're thinking in your mind is a smart thing to do or not, is the right thing to do, is a good thing to do. So a lot of times we think about the conscience being the place where the Holy Spirit speaks to us, where God speaks to us in our conscience, in our what we call our hearts, but what the Hebrews called their guts. That gut feel is really important because you can think almost anything. And it's really important to do that. Then there's this other verse, um, Proverbs 3, 5, that I was telling you about. And it says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding. So it it's a little different in that it's saying, trust with all now. Remember, in Hebrew, this word heart really just means your thoughts, everything. It's not just your emotions. And it says, so you put your mind into trusting God. That's what that really says. And don't rely on your understanding. And understanding is like this other thing I was talking about, you know, this sort of rationalizing thing, the thing where you can think yourself into anything. So you can see that these two verses really are very similar. One is saying, you know, trust in God with your heart and don't just rely, just don't, don't just think about what's in your head and making sense of it all. You have to do both. You have to trust in God with your heart, and in order to make sure that what you're thinking is is smart. And that's just like uh like Jeremiah 17, is that you, you know, you that that mind, if you you convince yourself to do something bad, you've got to check it with your conscience. See how important that is? So this is actually really good advice for daily living, the kind of things that we do. Whenever you make a really important decision, maybe you've done this or you've, you know, you've seen this. You go, what are these are the good things, you know. Sometimes you people say, these are the pros, you know, these are the good things that we can do from making this decision. Or maybe I make this other decision. And these are and these are the bad things that will come from that. So, like, you know, maybe you want to uh play a certain sport or something like that. And you say, well, the good things about this sport is um, you know, uh I can get stronger, I'm pretty good at it. Um, you know, I love, you know, I love to say pay play baseball, for example. I'm pretty good at that and all of that. The bad side or the the downside of it is is well, it's gonna take a lot of practice. It's um, you know, maybe it's not the best thing for my body, maybe um uh I'm really good at part of it, but not the other part of it. See, those are all rational thoughts. Those are all thoughts that you're kind of thinking through. But in the end, after you, you know, label or list all of the things that are good about this decision, list all the things that could go wrong or not be good about this decision, in the end, the decision you're always gonna make with your gut. You're always gonna say, well, you know what? A lot of times I think this is the right thing to do, and this isn't the right thing to do. You know, uh there are maybe it's like there are these downsides of doing, doing, um, you know, uh playing this sport, for example, but I I really I do want to commit to it. And um, my heart, my gut says, let's go do that, right? Or other things where you say, you know, I really want to spend my money on this thing. And here are the downsides if I spend money on it, here's the good things I get from it. You know, I'm not sure, but you know, my gut says it would be the wrong thing to do to spend money on this thing I'm gonna buy. See how that works? And why that's so important is that when you, you know, get into uh really big decisions that you make in life, things like do I want to have children? Do I want to buy a house? Do I want to have this job or that job? Uh those kinds of decisions, really hard decisions, and there are always multiple sides of that. You do the same thing. You uh kind of list what makes sense and you check it with your conscience. Is this a good thing to do? Is it a bad thing to do? Is it a wise thing to do? Is it the evil thing to do? And then your conscience, your gut, tells you what to do in the end. So I think this is great, great advice for daily living. There, so let me tell you a little bit about how this is used in a bad way. I talked about that uh before. There is um sometimes you get this in in Christianity, sometimes you get this with evangelists, um, or you get this with people, they they'll tell you about how bad you are. How you can't trust your heart, you can't trust your mind, you know nothing. And this comes from a long time ago, actually. This comes from uh uh from people like John Calvin, you know, 500 years ago, but also comes from other kinds of pastors over time that did this, and they really make you feel terrible about yourself. They give you a lot of shame feelings or guilty feelings. And sometimes you'll hear it from uh evangelists today or people today. They'll go, you know, you're headed to hell. You're really a bad person, and you're so bad, and God made you, you know, God uh um uh is going to punish you for who you are just for being a person. And they they use it, it's called depravity, uh, this idea, total depravity. And they use these kind of verses to kind of tell you that. And why I think it's so bad is then what it does is it ignores the fact that you are a whole person. You're not just bad, you're not just um you know, without uh with an evil heart, you're not just with no conscience and things like that. That know, in fact, that God speaks to us through our minds and our hearts instead of just saying you're just horrible. And they do this for a big reason. It's kind of like if you are going into, say, um, the military, like you're gonna go into the army, you go to boot camp, and it's the hardest thing you'll ever do if you go into boot camp. Sometimes people do this for other things like football camp or some other other things, and you go, this is the hardest thing I'll ever do. One of the things that they'll do is they'll kind of beat you down. They'll go, no, you're you're nothing, you you don't know anything, you don't, and they get you into a place where you really start believing it. So you may have heard of gaslighting. I don't know if you have or not, but if gaslighting is this idea that I'm gonna make you doubt yourself so much, I'm going to kind of abuse you and manipulate you to get you to you believe you don't believe anything. That way, if you do that, then after a while, then I can come in and tell you what to do. And that's that's really uh a bad way to do evangelism or a bad way to convince people um to uh go to Jesus, to to become um a Jesus follower, to go to church, to love God. That that's a bad way to do it. Um, because what it does is it makes it so that you don't see yourself as a whole person. And instead of just realizing, you know, we're just whole people. We we do good things, we do bad things, we make good decisions, we make bad decisions, that we want to have a good relationship with God, and that's a good way, that's a good reason to do it, but to be beaten down and told you're going to hell, you're a horrible person, and the only way that out of it is for me to tell you how to believe. And they say, Well, that's the way of Jesus, and that's not no, that's not really the way of Jesus. The way of Jesus is um, yeah, some you admit you're wrong and you um you ask for forgiveness or and things like this, but you're also go, I'm a whole person in Jesus. Um God made me this wonderful, beautiful way that I can have a mind and I can have a heart. I can have a gut, I can have all of these things. I think it's just a much healthier way to do it. There are people um who have been in churches or been in these kind of um um experiences uh for like a lot of their lives, and it's honestly it's usually women and it's usually people who aren't in power, you know, or um uh pe people who aren't uh, you know, white Christian males, you know, uh or people with a lot of uh um authority, they're the ones that hear this all the time about themselves, these bad things. And so if you're that and you hear these bad things about yourself, realize it that it's not true, it's not about you, it's really about somebody trying to put you down and control you a lot of times. So it's really important to understand that and to understand where these scriptures come from. Remember, these scriptures, these two verses I'm telling you about were written over 2,000 years ago, 2,500 years ago, very long time ago. And they are have kind of what it means to be a human being in them, but still the meaning is a little bit hard for us to understand in the way that they thought about it because it was so long ago. We just don't know much about them. So, how we use the verses ourselves is our responsibility. It's to do it in a good way and to use, and this is like everything in uh reading the Bible, is always to understand that um the way that it meant to somebody when it was written, long, you know, thousands of years ago, is not something that we don't completely understand. And what makes it good for us is it's useful for us. We're told that. We're told that spirit that scripture is inspired by God, meaning that it has the Holy Spirit in it, or we use the Holy Spirit to understand it, and that makes it useful for teaching, for learning, for uh um rebuke, you know, doing uh correct. Correction, uh, you know, all the things that you hope for, all the things you go to school for, all the things that you hope to learn as you grow, is that you get you get you get uh encouragement, you get correction, you get all of these things together. So that's how you use the Bible, and that's the way you should use the Bible. Not use it to shame you, not use it to turn you into a worm or or or or just to flatten you so much that you'll you you have to listen to the pastor or the evangelist or whoever in order to be saved. No, it's not, it doesn't work that way. Trust in God. Trusting in God means trusting in your heart and what God tells you in your heart, and trusting in your mind, what God tells you in your mind, and to test them. That's what uh Jeremiah 17 10 is about testing, examining, and understanding the decisions you make. You make a bad decision, uh admit it, move on, make start making good decisions. That's what that's all about. So I'm so grateful that you uh that you listen to this, that you are following me. Um if you aren't following me, please subscribe, tell your friends about it. Um, this is what I'm hoping to do is to help you understand the Bible in this more positive, good way. And with that, I say thank you and God bless you.