Believer

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

We cannot trust our own hearts. We must abide in Christ, with the help and power of the Holy Spirit. Apart from him, we can do nothing good and we will always fall to temptation. Are you only a professor of the gospel, or a believer?

“Though all men should deny you,” says Peter, “I will not. Shall I do this evil? It cannot be.” All the arguments that are suited to give check to the heart in such a condition are mustered up. Did not Peter, think you, do so? “What! Deny my Master, the Son of God, my Redeemer, who loves me? Can such ingratitude, unbelief, rebellion, befall me? I will not do it.” Shall, then, a man rest in it that his heart will be steadfast? Let the wise man answer: “He that trusts in his own heart is a fool.” “The heart is deceitful” (Jer. 17:9). We would not willingly trust anything wherein there is any deceit or guile; here is that which is “deceitful above all things.” It has a thousand shifts and treacheries that it will deal with; when it comes to the trial, every temptation will steal it away (Hos. 4:11). Generally men’s hearts deceive them no oftener than they do trust in them, and then they never fail so to do.” Overcoming Sin and Temptation - John Owen