** This is part 4 of my series on Christian cliches. They’re meant for good but end up doing more harm in the long run**

I know the question sounds counter intuitive in a culture where many motivational gurus and life coaches are saying,

“Above all things trust your heart.”

while the Bible says,

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” – Jeremiah 17:9

Who is right?

The problem with listening to your heart is we are forgetting that you are your own worst enemy. You have within you a voice that is dearer than the voice of God or any angel or man. This voice can comfort and convince you against any teaching or warning. This voice is with you twenty-four hours a day, and it always tells you what you want to hear and what to believe. It helps you make most decisions and if you continually listen to it you are a fool and will be led down a horrible path.

Your heart has a strong opinion on any and every subject, whether you know anything about said subject or not. Your heart reacts in an instant against criticism or reproofs, and it controls you with passionate desire for something it wants. Your heart can lull you to sleep about matters it says are unimportant, and it can keep you from sleeping out of envy or hate.   It is your internal set of desires and needs that affects your decision-making. This is not your conscience it is your anti-conscience.  It is not the Holy Spirit but the antithesis of it, please do not get them confused.  Unfortunately this is the set of passions that drives most men and women.

Do what your heart tells you is a creed believed by millions today. It is one of the great cultural myths of the Western world, a gospel proclaimed in many movies and songs and television programs and stories.  We have to have a higher standard of authority than our heart, a higher standard of authority than mere opinion, and that is the Word of God.

Instead of trying to accommodate the Word of God to our changing culture, we need to accommodate our culture to the unchanging Word of God.

**Over the next few weeks I would love to address other Christian cliches, if there are some that you’ve wondered about please let me know in the comments below and I will try to address them in the upcoming weeks.**