Don’t Follow Your Heart!

Rather than follow our hearts, we must allow our hearts to be changed by God.   #daybydaylw   Interested in learning more about becoming a devoted follower of Christ? Go to follow.lifeword.org!   ~~~   Biblical Repentance recognizes the word of God as the authority of God. But in order for that to happen, we need to recognize that there is One who rules over us, and whose word is truth. Biblical repentance recognizes the authority of God over us. The LORD Sent Nathan, the prophet, to David. There is a reason why the LORD sent Nathan. Nathan was a prophet. Nathan was not primarily David’s friend, confidant, or homie. Nathan was a prophet of God, who spoke on behalf of God. We are introduced to Nathan in 2 Samuel 7 with that very title. David knew that when he saw Nathan coming, here too comes the word of the Lord. And when Nathan tells David the story of the rich man with a herd of sheep, and the poor man with one sheep, David thinks he is justified in his ruling over the rich man, not because he thinks of himself as righteous, but because he sees the story as asking for God’s word of judgment against the rich man. This is why David responds to the story by saying, “As the LORD lives…” He is calling God down as a witness to observe David’s execution of judgment and that it will be in line with God’s word. You see, David knew there was a higher authority than his own. He recognized God’s word as that authority and was willing to act on it when it came to other people falling underneath, and for himself for the most part. But then Nathan pointed the finger at David and said, “You are the man,” If you do not recognize God as the authority over all of life, if we do not see His word as our rule, then we will not have biblical repentance. We might think we are repentant, but it would just be a repentance from pragmatism or peer pressure R.C. Sproul once said that, “Our calling isn’t to follow our hearts. Our calling is to have our hearts informed by the clear and plain teaching of the word of God.”