Deceit of the Heart

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?" Jeremiah 17:9

I first learned this familiar verse when I was in elementary school. I never gave it much thought back then. I only memorized it to win an award at Bible club. And I certainly never knew how foundational it would be to my worldview now.

Who can know it? Who understands the heart, even with best intentions? I don't know about you, but I have surely caught glances of darkness hidden under layer upon layer of my motives and actions. Usually after the fact; hardly ever in advance. The deceit of my heart is often sharp and harsh and alarming when I do catch a flickering glimpse. And to know the wells of how deep it floods would surely be overwhelming to me.

I am certainly no historian. But, I recently read up a tiny bit on Pelagius, a guy who strongly rallied the concept of free will. He also denied the need for divine help in one's ability to do good, and did not subscribe to the idea that humans were wounded by Adam and Eve's sin. He was ultimately labeled a heretic for his assertions.

And still, we live in a Pelagiust world. We live in a world that tells us to "follow our hearts." We live in a culture that lauds "self discovery" as brave, and calls it courageous when we pursue our own happiness above all else. We live in a world where we have believed the lie that our desires are inherently good; that we really have the best of intentions all the time. We believe that being driven off of our own path by any moral parameter is pure evil. We don't believe we are the creature. We believe we are the god. 

I have recently seen people who were once genuine believers of the Christian faith walk away because the God they once served was too constrictive, He didn't allow happiness or self-discovery, or because they couldn't possibly call him loving because they lived in fear of disappointing Him.

 C.S. Lewis, in his book The Screwtape Letters, puts into words what has been swirling in my head lately:

" When He [God] talks of their losing their selves, He means only abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever."

Subscribing to a desperate need for Christ is not robotic. Losing self- will is actually freedom, when it is realized that self- will is the very thing that is destroying us all. Having a dispositional understanding of the wickedness of one's own heart provides a gateway to finally seeing the beauty of God in his perfect holiness. Not only that, but it gives us a grasp for mercy that we would never otherwise have, when we finally understand the depths from which we have been forgiven through Christ's bloodshed.

Tim Keller puts it beautifully:

"The gospel shows us a God far more holy than a legalist can bear and yet more merciful than a humanist can conceive."

Both the legalist and the humanist get it wrong when they think they could possibly understand a morsel of judgement or mercy apart from the deep well from which they have been brought out. We find ourselves at extremes, but both are rooted in the same, self-righteous place: the place where the heart has no need for anyone to come and rescue it.

If one sets out on a journey toward self-discovery/ fulfillment with only themself as the guide, what do you think they will turn up with?

Self.

 They may find something "new," but it will only be viewed through the grid which has already been determined by their own experience, sentiment, morality, etc. There is nothing new under the sun. The finest beauty a human can create is only a  mimic of God's created wonder. There is no new self revelation apart from reclaiming more and more of who God intended us to be before we decided to bolt in the other direction.

It is not brave to set out on one's own path. It is brave to trust the path that Christ forged when he reconciled our tumultuous, clamourous hearts back to God. To do otherwise is to nullify the rich grace we have through Jesus.

"...It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God..." Gal 2:20b-21a