Don't be true to your heart

Many of the juicy tidbits in God's word are where you least expect to find them. The memorable things. The details that leap off the page and confront what you believe about the world and your place in it.

One of the myriad idols of the Western Culture is the elevation of ego. "To thine own self be true." "Let your heart lead you." Blah, blah, blah.

Insincerity is a greater evil -- in the eyes of many -- than actual morally disjointed behaviour.

Why? Because we are ceaselessly thumped over the head with the philosophical dogma that there are no moral absolutes... so be yourself. (At any cost.)

The framework of Numbers 15 handles this nicely.

It portrays the response of someone who has sinned, and wronged God by negligence. He slipped up, succumbed to temptation or whatever. Certain Old Covenant sacrifices are mandated. (These have since been surpassed and been made obsolete by Christ's finished work on the Cross.)

But that sacrifice in Numbers does NOT provide for the person who thumbs his nose at God.

You know him: the guy who wants to hang out in the religious crowd, who knows when to sit, stand or kneel in the service, but who does not actually have a heart submitted to God.

A perfect example of this is Proverbs 7:13-15. The adulterous woman is looking to seduce some young buck. She says she has "offered sacrifices and paid vows" (Jewish religious duties) and now she can press on and sin without restraint. Yeah, I've done the God thing, now I can go back to living my life the way I want. Really, what could HE do about it?

We know people like that today, don't we? If God wants me to 'play on His team', great. But He's gotta take me as I am, and I ain't gonna change for anybody, especially HIM. He should just count Himself lucky to have me at all.

Yuck. What a miserable attitude.
Actually, for the record, He doesn't HAVE TO Anything.

If you are more committed to that which is Hateful to God, than to Him, you have just identified your idol. He can leave you to find help and hope from that thing, until you are ready to love Him for Himself.

Here comes the objection: But if I don't do it the way I always have, I'm just a hypocrite, just like all you Christians.

Uh, not exactly. There is hypocrisy in everyone. It just means play-acting. Living behind a mask. Pretending to be what you are not.

God does not have to receive the people who presume upon grace, and continue in sin. Anyone in that category is storing up wrath for themselves for the day of Judgment.

In that same chapter, God instructs his people to wear tassels on their clothes. To remind them of God's law. He explains (without mincing words).

Numbers 15: 39,40 And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God.

Your heart is the wrong place to look for guidance. It leads you away from Him.

Look rather to Him and His Word.