Jeremiah 17:9 - Summer of Scripture

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Welcome to Summer of Scripture on the Naked marriage podcast. For 66 days in a row, we're releasing a short daily devotional for your marriage. Over these 66 days, we'll be sharing one scripture from each of the 66 books of the Bible and talking about how it applies to your life and marriage. Listen to all 66 episodes of these and you'll have a better understanding of God's word and his perfect plan for your marriage. Let's dive in to today's scripture. Hey there and welcome back to the Summer of Scripture on the Naked Marriage Podcast. We hope you're loving these as much as we are. We are. On day 24, we are. In Jeremiah, chapter 17, verse 9, it says this. The human heart is the most deceitful of all things and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? I mean, dang, it's like, drop the.

Mic, you know, there's some feel good verses in Jeremiah, Jeremiah 29:11. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope in the future. But we chose this from the book of Jeremiah. He was known as the Weeping Prophet. He lamented a lot of just with a broken heart, some of the things that were happening and he wanted people to know or God, through the prophet, wanted us to know some of the things that were going wrong. And so I thought it's important that we point out some of that, that our world says, follow your heart above all else. And the Bible says that's really bad idea. The Bible says, guard your heart from all of the negative influences. But really we don't follow our heart. We follow the Lord, we follow his truth, and we let our heart catch up, man.

And this is countercultural. And it was countercultural in Jeremiah's day. You know, I did actually a deep study on this in one of my seminary classes. And it said that he was so misunderstood, like even Christians or even like not Christians back then, but even people who believed in God, like Israelites, weren't even sure how they felt about him. Like, they weren't even his own people, right? And it's like, oh, man. Like, even the people who you feel like are supposed to be for you, they're kind of against you. So you can understand where this poor guy is. Like, everything's falling apart, and it's because you're following your hearts and you're not following God, you know? And I just think that this is the dynamic we're living in today because even within some churches, they really don't understand the place, the proper place of the heart in, you know, our Christian walk. I think that this is. I mean, even from pulpits, this is like they're preaching this sing song, follow your heart gospel. And it's just. It's really leading people down the wrong path. And I think that if we're not in tune to what Jeremiah is saying here, then we're gonna fall down those paths too. Because it's so easy to be like, yeah, this is what I want. You know, there's the phrase, well, the heart wants what the heart wants.

Yeah, the heart wants the bad stuff.

I mean, what.

Your heart can lead you into adultery. It can lead you into abandoning your family. It can lead you into Dr. Addiction. It can lead you into all kinds of things that are simply not good for you or for the people around you.

Man, it's so true. And so we've got to really. We need to follow the truth, right? Yeah, we need to follow the truth. And also, I think sometimes we forget that we have a brain. Like, we have a brain. The mind and the heart go together. You know, this is something that was understood. Like, in Hebrew, there's only one word for the mind and the heart, and that's Leb L, E B. And I think it's really cool that they lump that together because both affect the other. I thought that was really interesting that they're, you know, in their language, I mean, they just lump that together. Because how we, you know, it's like the more we focus on something in our mind kind of seeps into our heart. And that's kind of where we go. And you see verses about where it talks about the mind and how we need to, you know, have our minds renewed by God and make sure that we focus on the right things. And so we always need to make sure that we're within those guardrails of what God has for us. And that's, you know, putting boundaries in place. That's making sure that we don't let our mind and heart get taken, like you said, by Fantasizing about somebody else outside of our marriage, or by just neglecting our family, by getting into these habits that seem harmless but turn into full fledged addictions. We really have to realize God gave us a brain. He gave us the ability to make decisions both good and bad, because he doesn't want us to be robots. And so what we have to do is stay tuned into him.

Yeah, we have to.

He needs to be our foundation. You know, he's the one that is our guide. But our good shepherd, you know, it calls the Bible, always refers to him as our good shepherd. But sometimes we can be stray sheeps and we need him to come rein us in, but we have to keep on, you know, following him. And then when we do go astray, go back to him and say, help me, Lord, help me to get back on the path that you have for me.

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It's so good. You know, I heard Pastor JP Pakluda recently, who's been on the podcast, great pastor and writer, he was saying how our heart kind of works, like the TikTok algorithm. And he said, you know, cause if you're looking at TikTok, whatever kind of videos you hover on, it gets you more of that algorithm. Like, oh, this is what you want. I'm gonna give you more of this. So if you're into decorating tips or makeup tutorials or funny videos or MMA fight clips or whatever, whatever you're watching, it starts saying that's what you want more of. And it starts feeding you more and more of it because you've focused on it. And where we put our focus is ultimately what we're gonna get more of. And so the Bible has so much to say about focusing on the right things. And that's part of how you guard your heart. If you're focusing your thoughts on negative things, things that are counter to what God has for you, or things that are creating lust, or anything, that's not what God has for you, that's gonna seep into your heart and it's gonna start reprogramming your heart and mind to say, that's what I need, that's what I want more of. So sometimes you've gotta go against. Against those feelings because they're lying to you. You gotta say, you know what? Any addiction starts with you have some of something, it's not good for you, but then your body starts telling you, I need that. I need it to survive. I need another hit, I need another drink to survive. When really what's happened is your mind, your body's been reprogrammed by something that it wasn't meant to have that much of in the first place. And so we have to sometimes go against our feelings to really kind of reprogram our heart and mind the way that renew is maybe a better word. Our heart and mind the way God wants us to. You know, that's what it says in the book of Romans that don't conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And then you'll be able to really see what God's will is.

Man, there's so much power in that. And, you know, I've shared here on the podcast about my own struggle with anxiety and depression. And one of the things I learned in therapy is the power of the mind and that we can choose what to focus on. I think we forget that. Like, yes. We can't help whatever random thought comes in there. We can. Like, we're human beings. We're going to. We think some weird stuff, you guys. Like, we dream about weird. Like, if you ever had a dream, you remember and you're like, where in the world did that come from?

Like, weird.

Like, there were unicorns doing yoga with.

My first grade teacher. Yeah, it's like mountaintop.

It's just so weird. And you're like, what is that in my, you know, the unconscious mind that is making me think about those things. And a lot of times there's like, literally no explanation. It's just random thoughts. But I think that sometimes we get so lost in, oh, if I'm thinking about this, this must be really what my heart wants. But you guys, that is just literally a lie from Satan himself, because that's what he wants us to believe, that we're helpless. Like, oh, I'm just helpless. I've just gotta do this. And it's just not true. And I remember in therapy, my. My therapist telling me, she said, listen, Ashley, like, you. You know, there's like, let's imagine your mind is like, your mind and heart, like, is a Train that's going. And she said, you know, if you basically set the direction and decide which, you know, train track it's going on, and really the rest of the train catches up. It catches up. Your feelings will catch up eventually, essentially, is what she was telling me. She's like, you lead your feelings. Because I was like, well, I don't feel like I'm worthy of whatever I feel, you know, Like, I was just telling her all this stuff. And she's like, your feelings are valid. Like, clearly you're dealing with something here. There is some things that haven't healed. Like there's some. Maybe some trauma from your past that we need to deal with. But this doesn't mean that, you know. Cause I had some really dark feelings where I was like, maybe I don't need to be here. And she's like, well, clearly that this is a lie. Let's see. Like, you know, why? Why this lie? But in the meantime, you need to keep on telling yourself God's truth in that, you know, you are his daughter and you have a purpose here. Not to harm you, but to prosper. You, you know, like, you have a hope and a future and, like, just focusing on his word as being those train tracks that my train needs to go down. And it might be slow going. I mean, that train might be barely chugging along. Like, for me, it was barely chugging along.

If it's moving in the right direction.

You get that momentum. And I'm telling you, it's the renewing of your mind. It starts going and going. And I'm telling you, I've lived this and that train, the train towards the lor. Like going down the train track laid within God's word. That's where freedom is. That's where freedom is, guys.

Just meditate on that today. That's where freedom is. And the Lord wants to take you there. Yes. So guard your heart, guys. Guard your heart. Hope that encouraged you today. That encouraged me today. Join us tomorrow. Stay on this journey with us. I hope it's as meaningful to you as it is to us. We'll be on day 26, man. The time is flying. Where is the time going? Actually, we'll be on day 25, so maybe the time's not flying that fast. Sorry, I'm bad with numbers. We'll be great in the book of Lamentations. We'll see you soon.