Are You Ignoring A Silent Killer?

Devotional – John Clardy

Ps 51:10            Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Ezek 36:26         A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

Heart disease is the number physiological killer in the United States. Heart disease kills more people than all types of cancer combined.

While the symptoms are sudden, heart disease happens over years. Improper diet and lack of exercise causes arteries to become damaged and deposits of fat and cholesterol become calcified and choke off the blood supply.

Because it is often difficult to identify heart disease and since symptoms such as infection and inflammation of the heart muscle are not readily recognizable, some people may wait to long to get help which results in serious consequences such as heart attacks or sudden death.

The treatment for heart disease varies from medication to angioplasty and bypass surgery and lastly, a patient may require a heart transplant. 

The best way to prevent heart disease is through proper diet, daily exercise and regular heart examinations by a heart specialist.

But physical heart disease is not our worst problem.  Spiritual heart disease is a silent killer also!  It is a fact that one out of every one person is afflicted with spiritual heart disease.  All have sinned, but many people have ignored their spiritual heart disease only to find themselves in the throes of a serious spiritual heart attack, some even to the point of sudden spiritual death.

Have you ever had someone tell you to just follow your heart?  That may be good in some earthly things, but it is the worst thing you can do spiritually.  In fact your heart can kill you spiritually.  Just like physical heart disease, there may be no noticeable or visible signs, but there has been a buildup of sin and iniquity that has severely damage our hearts.

Jer 17:9-10

9          The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

10         I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.

Since all of us have a bad heart, we must have a spiritual heart transplant and then we must prevent spiritual heart failure by properly exercising our faith, a daily diet of God’s Word, and regular subjecting our hearts to examination by the Holy Spirit!

Heb 4:12           For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Don’t ignore your spiritual heart disease!  Don’t let it be a silent killer in your life! It won’t just go away!  You need heart surgery!  Check yourself into Heaven’s Hospital!  Let Doctor Jesus take out your bad, stony heart and create in you a new and tender heart that will follow after God and lead you to life eternal!