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God made your physical heart to issue life giving blood to your body. God said the life of the flesh is in the blood. In the same way that your physical life is sustained by a healthy heart and circulatory system, God made the spiritual life of a soul much the same way.
There are so many precautions and medicines to keep your heart healthy or support your heart.
- Maybe the veins and arteries are filled with junk and either need to be cleaned with an oblation or opened with a stint or replaced with new pipes.
- Maybe the heart is struggling because of pressure. There is added stress, blood pressure is high.
- Maybe the heartbeat is irregular which causes life in the body to be irregular as blood flow is inconsistent. It takes a pacemaker or potassium to regulate it.
- These are all things that affect the pump and circulation of lifeblood throughout the body.
- But there are also bloodborne pathogens that don’t affect the pump, but they use the heart to spread themselves throughout the body. So these diseases enter in through an opening, get into the bloodstream and affect the entire body.
All of these medical and biological remedies are done for temporary bodies. But what about matters of the soul and things of eternal consequence?
Mouth
- What comes out of the mouth defiles the man. In a conversation every other word is an “F” bomb, somebody would say that guy has a filthy mouth. Somebody might say clean up your mouth. And years ago in our culture would make some conclusions about that man’s life based on what’s coming out of his mouth.
- Matthew 15:16-20 And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding? 17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? 18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. 19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: 20 These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.
- Matthew 12:33-37 Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. 34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. 35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. 36 But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. 37 For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.
Eyes
- Everyone knows how this works. What comes in through your eyes affects your heart. Haven’t you seen the animal commercials with the sad music and small hungry dogs shivering in a cage with sad eyes looking into the camera. Immediately you FEEL something.
- Now, that’s the truth. It’s not necessarily evil that what you see creates feelings in your heart. That’s the way God made you and me. The world will manipulate that to create feelings of lust, feelings of covetousness, but the LORD uses it to stir feelings of compassion and sympathy.
- Jeremiah said in Lamentations 3:51 after seeing Jerusalem in smoldering ashes, he said, Mine eye affecteth mine heart.
- John 7:24 Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.
Feet
- This goes back to Proverbs 1 where Solomon warned not to walk in the way of sinners.
- Where you spend time affects your heart. The danger is you’ll spend time away from the LORD and the things of the LORD and the places and times the LORD ordained for his work, and in the process of time you lose any desire for the things of the LORD.
- Sports, laziness, vacations, hunting, fishing, whatever pulls you away eventually leads to loss of desire and even hostility toward the things of God and the people of God.
- Proverbs 21:5 The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness; but of every one that is hasty only to want.
- Job 18:8 For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walketh upon a snare.
- Think about where you’re going.
- This is the opposite of a “leap of faith.”
- Psalms 40:1-2 I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. 2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
- The idea that a “leap of faith” can be exciting is true, but when the excitement wears off people find out they’ve overstepped and maybe stuck in a snare.
Not that every heart problem is tied to an individual’s sin, but it’s sure interesting that the leading cause of death in every nation among men and women is heart disease. And there are lots of medicines and remedies to guard their heart. Lots of precautions people take to ensure their heart stays as healthy as it can. Because everyone seems to know that the heart sends life to the body and if the heart doesn’t work the body dies.
