God Knows My Heart...

This is what the LORD says: “Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans, who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the LORD. [Jeremiah 17.5]

God used Jeremiah to say a lot about idolatry. Anyone who reads Jeremiah's prophecies understands that idolatry is serious business in God's eyes - serious business with serious consequences.

An idol is best described by this statement: an idol is anything man trusts for that which God promised to provide. Idols are the fabrication of man - the works of man's hands (man's ingenuity).

While it might be, and most often is, argued that God gave the ingenuity and strength for man to create his idols ("tools" or "sciences" or "advancements" we call them - better known as debt, insurance, medicine and technology), that argument is most always followed with the assurance that, "I am not trusting in them - God knows my heart!" as if to preempt further argument. Well...

Not ironically, almost as if God knew what man's argument would be... He had Jeremiah write these words in the very context of Jeremiah 17:

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? But I, the LORD, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.” [Jeremiah 17.9-10]

See the first paragraph above where the word consequences is italicized. In Jeremiah 17.9-10, "their due rewards" is one and the same as consequences. Here is where man gets all 'fuzzy' in his religion...

"Due rewards" or "consequences" both describe curses upon disobedience (see Deuteronomy 28.15-68). No matter what we think our heart says, our actions and their due rewards (the curses we experience) say differently. Curses do not lie. Curses are not random. Curses scream of disobedience regardless what we think. To declare, "God knows my heart" only confirms why curses are experienced!

The deceitful human heart is exactly why God had to give curses as tangible confirmation of the presence of sin! Without them, man would believe his self-declaration of innocence. A deceived person doesn't know he is deceived! Tangible curses are the only "due reward" natural man is capable of understanding - otherwise, they would not be necessary.

And yet... man now has widely-accepted explanations for what Deuteronomy 28 describes as curses. Man's idols (debt, insurance, medicine and technology) all remediate the ill effect of curses without the burden of repentance. Religion, has further damned the situation by allowing man's deceptive mantra, "God knows my heart" as if his cursed circumstances mean nothing! But Jesus spoke clearly to the end of unrepentance:

No, and I tell you again that unless you repent, you will perish, too. [Luke 13.5]

So, back to Jeremiah 17.5. Are we going to trust in mere humans (and the deception of the human heart)? Or, are we going to trust in God? 

Faith in God alone is not just "an Old Testament thing" either. Jesus Christ critically narrowed the scope of faith to faith in Him alone:

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. [John 14.6]

You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it. [Matthew 7.13-14] 

The narrow way of faith in Christ alone however does not, in any way, negate the message that curses openly declare calling us to repentance and monogamous faith in Christ alone! 

Do we dare risk our precious faith being diverted or diluted, if not entirely absorbed, by our man-made solutions (idols) that God in His Word so sternly implores us to reject?

This is what the LORD says: “Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans, who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the LORD. [Jeremiah 17.5]

Father, may our faith be in You and You alone! May our understanding of curses be our understanding of our idolatry and therefore our need to repent and turn to You ALONE. May we seek remediation for sin (curses) NOT at all in idols, but ONLY in You. God, help us! So be it.