Maybe you’ve been told to “listen to your heart” and “follow your heart” and “believe with all your heart.” The Bible says something quite different, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).

The human heart is the organ of the body that assists in keeping the physical body alive, but when God talks about the heart, He is speaking of the center of the inner man; his emotional life, his ethical life, his religious life. The heart is the center of who you are; your essence is compiled of both body (material) and soul (immaterial). It is the center of your will and purpose; where you get direction. Even though our outward appearance may look attractive, God is more concerned with the condition of our heart (1 Samuel 16:7).

The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind and with all your strength (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). Since sin entered in through the Fall, everything has changed. Because of the curse of spiritual death (and physical death) our heart in its original state has a disposition to love ourselves and neglect God. The heart of man sins continually (Genesis 6:5), does not seek God (Psalm 14:2-3), cannot repent (Jeremiah 13:23), is blind and deaf (Isaiah 6:9-10), is deceitful and sick (Jeremiah 17:9), and desperately needs new birth (John 3). The corruption of sin extends to the intellect, emotions, as well as the will of man. It is now degenerated.

Jesus communicated the truth that our hearts are the source of our sin condition (Mark 7:20-23). A change in our circumstances cannot change our condition. It would seem we need a heart transplant; a removal of our heart of stone and replaced with a heart of flesh. Not a circumcision of our foreskin, but a circumcision of the heart.

God alone has done something to restore us back to our original estate. He will now regenerate the hearts of His people. “And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezekiel 11:19-20).

With this new heart comes new desires, new affections, a new identity, a new nature, a new will, new gifts, a new power, a new mind, and a new life. In a sense, God gives you His heart, restoring you into the image of His Son. This principle is called the new birth, regeneration, quickening, or born-again. There is no metaphysical change in the man’s substance, but rather the heart is changed in such a way that the unwilling becomes willing and the unable becomes able. Man’s direction, course and compass has radically been redirected and rerouted due to the new heart. A person regenerated by God is a new creation; a new man. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, is now seated on the throne of the new man’s heart; ruling and reigning the seat of affection.

God, by sovereign, operative grace, has turned our enmity to love and our unbelief to faith. The old heart, that is wicked, corrupt, polluted, is now replaced with the new heart in which we are now able to love and worship the LORD God with all of our totality and to serve the people in our lives selflessly. The new man with a new heart no longer lives for himself, instead he lives for the fame and praise of his Savior. “And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul” (Jeremiah 32:38-41).

The Bible makes it very clear that God is the sole agent in the work of regeneration. Because of God’s mercy and grace it’s not that you have to keep His commands, but you want to keep His commands. “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:33-34).

In the quietness of your heart, ask yourself: What is the posture of my heart? When I’m all alone and doing nothing, what do I think about? What is the determination which my heart is set to? Do I delight in God’s law and mediate on it day and night? Do I seek the hands of God, but not His face? Do you honor God with your lips, but your heart is far from Him? Could it be that you need a new heart? Trust God, not your heart.