The first verse I memorized once I finished The Navigators’ Topical Memory System during my sophomore year of college was Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” I don’t remember why I memorized it and I wish I never did because for the next thirty years I used that verse as a template for understanding my heart! For thirty years I distrusted my heart and would not listen to it…after all it could not be trusted. It was deceitful and misleading.

Now I know better. Jeremiah 17:9 does not describe the heart of a believer. It does not describe my heart. When I trusted Christ I was given a new and transformed heart. Romans 6:17 (ESV) describes it as a heart that can and wants to obey. Ephesians 4:23 describes my new nature as “created after the likeness of God, in true righteousness and holiness.” This is why being out from under the law and being released from the law does not result in me running wild and sinning more. I have a heart that does not want to do that…can’t imagine doing that. I do not have to be afraid of the freedom that Christ set me free for!