“It always gets me when people talk about ‘listening to your heart’ or ‘following your heart.’ Jesus didn’t say, ‘Lay down your life, take up your cross, and follow your heart.’ In fact, the Lord said quite the opposite. ‘The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?’ Christians should not follow their hearts, but the Word. We live in a time where people are more concerned with living by their feelings than by the Truth, sadly.”

This was written by Kelly who just commented on Trying to Justify Christians Watching This is Us. She’s right. We should not follow our hearts but carefully follow God’s Word in everything we do, watch, and read. Charles Spurgeon wrote, “I believe that one reason why the church of God at this present moment has so little influence over the world is because the world has so much influence over the church.”

Are we being entertained by the same garbage that the world is being entertained by or do we make sure that our entertainment is good, lovely, and pure? Are we reading the same books that the world is reading or are we careful with what we fill our minds with? Are we careful to measure our lives and actions by the Word of God instead of our culture? Do we care more about being seekers of God rather than seekers of pleasure?

God is clear in His Word how we are to live our lives. There is no doubt. We are to be a people who are wholly set apart and not conformed to the world (Romans 12:2). We are repeatedly warned of false teachers so we need to avoid them. We are exhorted to be thankful because not being thankful is one of the first steps that leads to all types of sin in Romans 1. Every day is a gift, therefore, it’s important to be thankful to the Giver of life and for each day.

It’s popular today for Christian women to “hear” from God and try to get others to believe that God speaks to them personally. This appeals to their emotions. Does God tell us anywhere in His Word that He will personally speak to us outside of His Word? “What the Holy Spirit has never promised to do is to deliver new revelation to non-apostles, no matter how sincerely they wait and listen. Generations of Christians have found that the Holy Spirit has faithfully fed them and led them in deep communion with the mind of Christ through the Scriptures as they have learned the discipline of reading, meditating on the Word, and acquired the tools to study it.”

This is how we are to live our lives, women. Not by following our hearts or our feelings or what we may hear God speak to us personally but by reading and knowing God’s perfect Word. It’s easy for us to be deceived since we tend to allow our emotions  and feelings to guide us instead of truth. We are warned of this in the Word (1 Timothy 2:14). Yes, living godly lives takes sacrifice and self-denial but this what God asks of us and it is the least we can do for all He’s done for us.

There is a great famine in our land of the knowledge of God’s Word, the Bible. This is why so many women are so easily led by false “Christian” authors and teachers. They make them feel good. They don’t know the Word. When they know the Word, they can easily detect a false teacher and flee as the Bible warns. Television shows, movies, and books that are ungodly and/or false teachings will no longer hold any appeal over them since they only want to please the Lord. They are more concerned with following and obeying truth rather than their heart, emotions, or feelings.

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.
1 Peter 2:9