Follow your heart. It’s the message of every Christmas Hallmark movie. Stop listening to your head when your heart knows what’s best. Be true to yourself. Go with your gut.

Rosaria Butterfield, Melissa Kruger, and Trillia Newbell sat down to talk about this message that pervades our culture. They look at what the Bible says about our hearts, indwelling sin, and the heart of Christ. But they also talk about how to pursue guidance in making decisions and acting on desires that aren’t sinful.

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Related:

Sisters, Jesus Is Not Your Cheerleader (Melissa Kruger)
Love Your Neighbor Enough to Speak Truth (Rosaria Butterfield)
Don’t Trust the Peace in Your Heart (Matt Rogers)
Jonathan Haidt on the Coddling of the American Mind (Collin Hansen)

Try Before You Buy: FREE Sample of TGC’s New Advent Devotional

Choosing the right Advent daily devotional can be tough when there are so many options. We want to make it easier for you by giving you a FREE sample of TGC’s brand-new Advent devotional today.

Unto Us is designed to help you ponder the many meanings of this season. Written by TGC staff, it offers daily Scripture readings, reflections, and questions to ponder. We’ll send you a free sample of the first five days so you can try it out before purchasing it for yourself or your church.

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Rosaria Butterfield is a former tenured professor of English at Syracuse University and author of The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (Crown & Covenant, 2012) and Openness Unhindered: Further Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert on Sexual Identity and Union with Christ (Crown & Covenant, 2015). Her new book is The Gospel Comes with a House Key (Crossway, 2018).

Melissa Kruger serves as vice president of discipleship programming at The Gospel Coalition. She is the author of The Envy of Eve: Finding Contentment in a Covetous World, Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood, In All Things: A Nine-Week Devotional Bible Study on Unshakeable Joy, Growing Together: Taking Mentoring Beyond Small Talk and Prayer Requests, Wherever You Go, I Want You to Know, His Grace Is Enough, Lucy and the Saturday Surprise, Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in a Secular Age, and Ephesians: A Study of Faith and Practice. Her husband, Mike, is the president of Reformed Theological Seminary, and they have three children. She writes at Wits End, hosted by The Gospel Coalition. You can follow her on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.

Trillia Newbell is the author of several books including A Great Cloud of Witnesses, Sacred Endurance, If God Is For Us, Fear and Faith, and children’s books Creative God, Colorful Us and God’s Very Good Idea. She encourages and supports other writers as the acquisitions director at Moody Publishers. Trillia is married to her best friend, Thern. They reside with their two children near Nashville. You can find her at her website and follow her on Instagram.