October 14 – Deception’s Defeat (Jeremiah 17:5-13)

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”(Jeremiah 17:9)

IN WORD:
Not only can we be deceived by the false prophets of our age, we can also be deceived by our own hearts. We often embrace lies if they are emotionally satisfying, never discerning the final result of believing them. God’s wisdom takes a backseat to our affections when our affections have not been rooted in Him. The fact of the heart’s treachery is a huge affront to our ego. It’s a tragic affront to our Father.
Such is the nature of human wisdom. It is dark and deceptive, shifty and shallow, misdirected and myopic. It rejects the present reality of eternity for the future hope of personal glory. It builds on shifting sand. And, according to God’s Word in Jeremiah, it is beyond cure!
How tragic. How scary. How can the God of hope give us such a hopeless word? How can the promise of salvation be so un-promising? How can we continue to read the Bible after we’ve come across this desperate declaration? How can we be redeemed?
The answer is glorious. God promises later in Jeremiah to give His people a new heart (24:7). So what if our hearts are beyond cure? They are not beyond resurrection. Our dead hearts are not reformed or healed; they are raised to new life. They are replaced with ones that are real. God says it even more precisely in Ezekiel: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).

IN DEED:
Only God can understand our hearts, and His assessment is utterly depressing if we do not know the rest of His plan. But He who discerns our deepest thoughts and most obscure deceptions (v. 10) offers us His pure and truthful Spirit to replace the corruption of our flesh.
These dreaded prophecies do not end with dread, and the wisdom of God does not end with death. Those who embrace it find life — answers now, direction today, and character always. Open your heart daily, to His life.

“O for a heart to praise my God, a heart from sin set free; a heart that always feels Thy blood so freely shed for me.”
-Charles Wesley-