Welcome back to the course! We are so glad you are here.
Before the cross of Christ cut and healed our hearts, they were hard as stone and sick (Ezekiel 36:26; Jeremiah 17:9). We trusted in ourselves or the solutions of the world to help us get through the day, maybe not even realizing that it was our hearts that needed to be changed.
However, when we were wounded, healed, and transformed by hearing the message of the cross, we received forgiveness for our sins and healing of our hearts through Jesus’ death and powerful resurrection. We entered into Jesus’ death, entered into His rest, entered into His resurrection, and we rose with power, a new life free from the mantras and quick fixes of the world. Friend, this is why gospel freedom isn’t like anything the world has to offer.
Man cannot offer true freedom through human/worldly counseling, and, as we’ll see in our lesson today, temporal methods are void of power because their hope and healing are rooted in man’s wisdom and knowledge. Freedom cannot come from within by making resolutions to “try harder” or “do better”! No, all methods of men, whether internal self-help or the systematic approach of others, “turn our hearts away from the Lord.”
“This is what the Lord says: Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord.” Jeremiah 17:5 NIV
When we trust in man, we are drawing from the knowledge and wisdom of men—drawing from man's knowledge and experience rather than the Lord's strength and power! Following man's ways, we might seem to be drawing closer to freedom, or we might think that we've entered into the "recovery" process, but the reality is, we are distracting and distancing ourselves from the lasting freedom that only Jesus can give.
Oh, friend, the love of God found at the cross draws all people to Christ (John 12:32), where our hearts are pierced, cut, removed, and replaced (Ezekiel 36:26), and where we are crucified and raised to new life (Galatians 2:20). So, it shouldn't surprise us that man's ways "turn our hearts away from the Lord."
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9