Health has been on our minds a lot the past few years, hasn’t it? The pandemic sent us retreating into our homes. Now the news media are “encouraging” us with reports of a “triple-demic” – COVID, the flu and another respiratory disease called RSV.
Despite these health scares, the number one killer of people isn’t the coronavirus, cancer, stroke, acts of violence, kidney disease, car accidents or the flu. Year to year, the leading cause of death among men and women in the United States and around the world is heart disease.
No wonder: The healthy human heart never takes a break. The American Heart Association says for most adults, between 60 and 100 beats per minute is normal. Let’s say your heart beats on average 70 times per minute. That means it beats 4,200 in one hour; more than 100,000 times in a single day! Extend that over the course of a full year and your magnificent muscle has thumped about 37 million times. Factor in a lifespan of more than 70 years, and your busy heart has been beating more than 2.5 billion times!
I’m thinking about this because it’s my “anniversary.” Sixteen years ago, my heart was actually stopped – for about 40 minutes – replaced by a heart-lung machine during open-heart surgery. I received four bypasses and a new ascending aorta to correct a life-threatening aneurysm. But my heart has been faithfully doing its job ever since, beating well over 500 million times.
I thank the Lord for that, because almost every day we hear or read about people who have suffered serious heart attacks or other forms of heart dysfunction. With how hard and long our hearts work, it’s a marvel that they keep going as long as they do.
Regular updates I get from the Heart Association remind me of the grim toll heart disease takes, but a different heart issue every one of us suffers from doesn’t get nearly as much attention. It’s the disease afflicting our spiritual hearts. As Jeremiah 17:9 tells us, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” The Amplified Bible expands on this stating, “who can understand it fully and know its secret motives?”
This isn’t referring to the muscle in our chests that keeps blood coursing through our bodies. It concerns that part of us controlling our feelings, our will and our motivations. As the prophet Jeremiah said, we’re all born with sick hearts spiritually.
Jesus Christ addressed this when He said, “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).
He does offer the cure, but as Jesus noted, not everyone is ready to receive it. “For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them” (Matthew 13:15). He was quoting almost verbatim from Isaiah 6:9-10.
Let me ask you: If a cardiologist or cardiothoracic surgeon informed you that you had a very serious heart condition, but one that could be remedied, would you accept the cure? That’s exactly what I did in 2006, and God was gracious to keep a promise that I had read in Psalm 41:3, “The Lord will sustain him on his sickbed and restore him from his bed of illness.”
But even better than that, nearly 30 years earlier the Lord had started to address my spiritual heart condition. This is described in two places in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, including Ezekiel 36:26, where He declares, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
In a very real sense, this is exactly what happens when a person is “born again” spiritually, as Jesus termed in John 3:3, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” When that occurs, we experience what we find described in the Old Testament: “The Lord God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love Him with all your heart and with all your soul and live” (Deuteronomy 30:6
I have not ceased being thankful for my skilled heart surgeon, Dr. Richard Morrison, his surgical team, and the cardiologists who have cared for me since the life-changing day my physical heart was repaired. However, that momentous event still pales in comparison to what the Lord has done in my life spiritually.
Hebrews 10:22 says it better than I could: “let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”
Have you had a heart checkup – especially if you’re advancing in years? I can’t recommend that strongly enough. But what about your spiritual heart? A “checkup” there is even more urgent. One day, no matter how well we take care of our human hearts, they will stop. But once you receive a new spiritual heart, it’s good for all of eternity!
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