- [Melissa Kruger] So, one of the things I love to do and have done
since I was about 15 years old is journal, and I have all these journals.
I've written down my prayers for years. I have a very specific type of journal I
like to get. I like a spiral bound with a hard cover. And so sometimes it's hard
to find these, and I've found them through the years. And they usually just have
pictures of flowers on them and all these things. Now they're filled with messages
like be true to yourself. You know, dream big. But the one I see the most is
"follow your heart". So, my question for you all is, should we,
as Christians, follow our heart? What does that even mean for us
as women who believe?
- [Trillia Newbell] I'd love to hear from you first.
- [Rosaria Butterfield] Well, especially if I'm talking with my
unbelieving neighbor, and she says to me, "Well, I'm in this really
compromising situation, and I'm just going to follow my heart.
What do you think, Rosaria?" you know, I'll often say, well, you know,
I think that's a really interesting point. But, you know, I think sometimes we might
be using the same vocabulary and different dictionaries. So, as a Christian,
I want to follow Christ's heart. I really do. And, you know,
I'm in the south and so a lot of people can tell you about the works of Christ.
They can tell you that he died on the cross. They can tell you that he rose
again on the third day. But, I've noticed that not a lot of even maybe
some of, you know, our people but certainly my neighbours who have been
to church but have walked away from it. they don't know the person of Christ.
They don't know that Christ's compassion is the best firewall
against my committing, my own personal sinful desires that exist
out there. And so, you know, my responses to, you know,
channel Thomas Goodwin a bit here, the Puritan who wrote the <i>The Heart</i>
<i>of Christ</i> and say, yes, actually when Christ was arrested,
I was with him. When Christ was scourged, I was there. When his hands were nailed
to the cross, those were my hands. When he died, I died with him.
And when he rose again, I stand now in the risen Christ.
My Christian life came in exchange for the life I once loved, not in addition to it.
But it's not loss, it's gain because my heart is the heart of Christ.
- [Trillia Newbell] Amen. Yes, as I was thinking about this,
I just thought, if we are to follow our hearts, it kind of a little bit depends.
We could follow our hearts to hell, right? We could follow our hearts to sin.
Well, in that case, you don't want to follow your heart, right?
But I think sometimes what the tension is for Christians is that they're actually
trying to figure out what to do. And I think, if you're following your
heart to sin, then absolutely no. We are not governed by our hearts.
We don't do what our hearts tell us to do because our hearts are deceitful and they
can lead us down a dark, dark path, so we want to follow Christ and
Christ's heart. With that said, if you're trying to figure out,
I have a desire to go to Spain on a mission trip. It is my heart.
Should I follow my heart? I think, well, if you're not going into sin,
then, yeah, let's go to that mission trip. I think sometimes we can overthink
our decisions, and I think that sometimes we can almost stifle the Spirit
because we want so badly not to follow our hearts. We want to please God,
and that's good. So what we is we don't do anything. And Kevin DeYoung
wrote a book called <i>Just Do Something</i>. I so appreciate that. I appreciate that
perspective. So in that situation, where we're trying to make a decision
or we're trying to...you probably can, "Okay, is this sinful?" then maybe
you could just do that heart desire. But when you're following your heart
into a sin pattern or following your heart into sin, then no. Don't do that.
Don't do that. Follow Christ. So I think it all depends on what we're
talking about here and getting these definitions.
- [Melissa Kruger] Yeah, I like that because I think sometimes we
have this thought that all desires at all are bad. But that perhaps, you know,
God gives us a new heart and He's going to align our desires even with good things
from this new heart that he's placed in us. So, when we find ourselves wanting
to share the gospel with someone, wanting to, you know,
do these good works which He says He prepared in advance for us to do,
we can run in the path of His commandments because He set our heart free is what
it says. And so there is this…we are new creations. Now we're warring with the
old man, the flesh that still will have desires, and so I think this is where we
have that we look at Scripture and we say, "Oh, this desire is outside of God's will
so it's wrong. My heart can be deceitful above all things." But when we see Him
placing desires in us and we have passions for things, that are God-oriented and
God-centred and for His glory, we can run in the path of His commands
with joy. You know, all service to God doesn't have to be misery.
It should be this overflow, you know [not like], "Oh, the most righteous thing I do is the
really hard thing," but that we can live lives of service that are full of Christ's
love because we realize what he's done for us. And that's a different heart
of service that's joyful.
- [Rosaria Butterfield] Right, one of the differences though is that
often when the world says follow your heart, it's very individualistic and it's
very outside of any kind of communal boundary. And, one of the things that we
mean as Christians, when we follow our heart, we have sisters in the Lord
to check with. We have the Bible to check with. We have our elders.
We have our pastors. We have many counselors.
We're not poll-taking. But it does mean that my "following my
heart" is not something that happens all by myself. So, you all are going to help
me make sure that I'm not following my heart to hell.
- [Trillia Newbell] Absolutely. You do not, yes. That is such a
good point. We, as Christians, are in a community. We're adopted
into a family. So we're no longer just living for ourselves in the first place,
but we're also living with a community. So it's so essential and important that
we're getting feedback, accountability. We're asking good questions before we
follow our hearts.
- [Rosaria Butterfield] And again we need to make good on that,
because if we're saying that but actually in the church, we're just a bunch
of isolated, lonely people. Then, that's not going to happen.
Because when we are faced with these decisions, they feel organic
and spontaneous. Sometimes we need to make quick decisions. Sometimes our need
to check with you isn't going to correspond with the Tuesday afternoon
women's luncheon. Sometimes I need to just text you now. We need to be relationship
so that we can make good on that.
- [Together] Absolutely.
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