Body
THE HEART. It truly is a mini but mighty marvel! It starts beating about four weeks after conception and never stops...until God says so. Although it's only about the size of a clenched fist, it tirelessly beats on average about 100,000 times each day. Over an 80-year lifespan, that amounts to roughly 3 billion beats! In just one day, our heart pumps a whopping 2,000 gallons of blood throughout a network of blood vessels that, if stretched out, would be an incredible 60,000 miles long and reach around the Earth about two and a half times! However, it's interesting that when the Bible talks about the heart, it's talking about the spiritual part of our being— both positively and negatively. On the negative side, many verses speak about the heart of the natural man in his sinfulness, i.e., of unbelievers or those who reject God's rule in their lives. God says of man that 'every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually' (Gen. 6:5), so much so that the 'heart is evil from his youth' (Gen. 8:21). The heart is described as 'stubborn' (Psa. 81:12), 'perverse' (Psa. 101:4), 'proud' (Psa. 101:5), 'deceitful' (Prov. 17:20), and 'incurably sick' (Jer. 17:9). It was Jesus who, in Mark 7:21-23, said, 'For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.' In God's infinite wisdom and design, even as our physical heart keeps beating until the end of life, so our spiritual 'heart' or sinful nature also continues 'beating.' That's true for Christians, too. Even the Apostle Paul grasped his sin nature, saying 'that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief' (1 Tim. 1:15). Of course, the most eternally critical need of the heart is trusting Christ...before God stops it from beating.