follow your heart?

My faith family is reading through the Bible this year.  We are in the book of Jeremiah right now.  Jeremiah prophesied to Judah that they were going to be punished for their sins by being brought into captivity.  I am learning so much about the seriousness of sin and the mercy of God.  God is merciful and ready to forgive, but He also cannot and will not allow sin to go unpunished.  He shows us this clearly through Jeremiah....
We live in a culture that tells us to "follow our heart."  Many churches even tell us to do this!  It sounds sweet, warm and fuzzy, but the consequences of following our own hearts are HUGE.  Look at the passages below.  All of these passages are explaining why Judah was being punished:
Jeremiah 9:13-14
^"13And the LORD says: "Because they have forsaken my law that I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in accord with it, ¹⁴but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them."
Jeremiah 13:10
^"10This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own heart and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing."
Jeremiah 16:11-12
^"11then you shall say to them: 'Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the LORD, and have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law, ¹²and because you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me."
Through these verses, we can see that following our own hearts and following God's Word are in DIRECT OPPOSITION to each other.  Look at the verses again, and you will see that every time, God says some variation of this: that the people have forsaken Him and His law in order to follow their own heart. One chapter over in Jeremiah 17:9, God tells us, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?"


What is the solution to this problem?


Only God can change our hearts.  Psalm 51:10 is a cry for God to create in me a new, pure heart.  He alone gives us a new heart that is able to desire Him.  But, it still isn't easy after that.  God does not magically make every Christian wake up seeking Him wholeheartedly each and every day without sinful desires waring for our attention.  It is a battle.  That's probably one reason why God gives us such clear instruction in how to handle our evil hearts.  He also lets us know this will be WORK.  Check out Deuteronomy 11:18, "You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes."  
This verse doesn't describe a magical desire for God's Word to be obeyed.  Rather, it describes an INTENTIONAL relationship with the Word.  We must make a strong effort to know it, keep it in our hearts and in our minds.
This is all over Scripture.  Here are a couple places:
Psalm 119:11 "¹¹I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you."
Romans 12:2 "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.^"


Isn't this what Jesus tells us to do when we are to lay down our lives and follow Him?  We must die daily to our own desires and very lives in order to give ourselves to God's desires.
Let's do the hard work of denying ourselves in order to give ourselves to doing the very Word of God.