(You There)

Work Hard & Get Ahead in Life.

Do What You Love & You’ll Never Work a Day in Your Life.

Follow Your Heart & Life Will Go Well For You.

Seek Your Heart’s Desires & You’ll Be Happy.

These are great “sayings” that we see wherever we go:  on signs, tee-shirts, stickers, and motivational materials.  While these popular sayings are filled with some truth, they are also filled with some un-truth.  For Example—

• Imagine a young lady who works hard, toiling at two part-time jobs but cannot save enough to make a down-payment on a home for her child and herself.
• Imagine a young man who loves to write, loves to fashion words into statements of truth as a freelance writer, but to put food on his table and to keep on the lights in his home, he must go to the office six days a week at the local newspaper office.
• Imagine an inspiring entrepreneur, one who foregoes college, follows his heart, opens a business, strives to build a cliental, but then fails miserably because his “sense of business” is not honed enough without a proper educational foundation to keep his struggling business afloat.
• Imagine two young lovers who seek what they most desire—each other—who chase their budding love with an unmatched intensity; yet before the month’s end, they have become so self-absorbed that they have lost their jobs, left their friends, and walked away from the God of their faith.

In retrospect, these are the most important truths—

We Must:  Follow God—not your heart.

We Must:  Seek God—not your heart’s desires.

We Must:  Love God—not what your hands seek to do.

We Must:  Walk with God—going where He leads you to go.

The prophet Jeremiah was sent by the LORD to the land of Judah to preach, to shake the people awake, to stand at the temple gates, to warn them about their impending doom if they did not change their ways.  What’s amazing to consider is how Jeremiah was a citizen of the very nation of people who were facing judgment, so Jeremiah was (in a real sense) preaching his own captivity and doom, a fate that actually occurred when the Babylonians swept in from the north and attacked.

Jeremiah proclaimed two types of people:  the cursed man & the blessed man.

Then Jeremiah prophesied about the truth about the heart of man that resides within the chest of everyman.

The LORD is clear!

• Do not place our trust in others.
• Do not place our trust in our strength.
• Do not turn away from following God.

BECAUSE IF WE DO—

• We will wither and die of thirst because the “living” water does not flow within us.
• We will have selfish hearts because our hearts will have turned to stone.
• We will not grow because we will not be even able to live with our own selves.

We cannot walk through this life, living for what makes us happy.  We have a selfish heart beating within our chest.

Thank goodness Jeremiah follows up the picture of the “cursed man” with the qualities of a “blessed man” description.

Again, the LORD is crystal clear!

• Do trust in the LORD!
• Do remember it IS only the LORD who IS the epitome of TRUST.
• Do continue to walk with the LORD each day.

BECAUSE AS WE DO—

• We will thrive as a tree planted by the riverbank soaking the water deep into our roots.
• We will not become scared when the struggles of life come (and they will) because the LORD resides within our being.
• We will remain thriving, producing the “Fruit of the Spirt” as the LORD guides our steps.

Truly, God’s Word is filled with words to live by.  For pure contentment, we must remain united with God.  We were created for this very purpose.

• We Must Work Hard—Following God & not our hearts.
• We Can Do What We Love—Seeking God & not our heart’s desires.
• We Follow the LORD—Loving God & Living as the Hands & Feet of Jesus.
• We Should Seek our Father’s Desires—Walking with God & Going Wherever He Leads.