Key Verses: Jeremiah 9:13-14 “And the Lord said, “Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice, nor walked according to it, but they have walked according to the dictates of their own hearts and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them.” Have you ever wondered why we sometimes even as Christians we have a hard time obeying God’s commands? After all that God has done for us, why can’t we just love Him and listen to Him and follow His commands? Well in Jeremiah 9, God has just told Jeremiah about the coming judgment upon Israel, and Jeremiah or an unnamed person asks, “why does the land perish and burn up like a wilderness, so that no one can pass through?” God gives his response in V.13-14. The reason is that they have forsaken the law of God and not obeyed His voice. Instead they have went after the Baals. They began to follow pagan gods and do the very deeds God told them not to do. Why would they do this? Why did these people who claim to know God not obey His Word!!? The beginning of V.14 tells us. They walked according to the dictates of their own hearts. The problem is that they allowed their sinful heart to lead them away from God. They allowed their heart to dictate their path not God and His voice. Here the heart is not the muscle beating in one’s chest, rather it refers to the seat of one’s emotions and desires. The problem with all people is that we have a heart problem. As Jeremiah writes later in his prophetic book, ‘the heart is wicked above all else, who can understand it.’ There are a great many of supposed Christians who want to go to heaven, but don’t want Christ to transform their desires. They want to have Jesus, yet still have some of their sinful ways and when this happens they find themselves always struggling and living in sin. We go about our days listening to our wicked hearts, without allowing Christ to transform them. Take a look at your heart today and then ask Christ to change it! We have to cry out to Jesus to change our hearts, to continue to change them each day so that we can begin to obey Him more often and enjoy doing so!
