February is American Heart Month. February 7 is National Wear Red Day. All this is designed to raise awareness about heart health and to urge those around us to prevent heart disease. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute has a website where you can find all the tools you need to promote this in your communities. (Below)
The heart is a vitally important part of our anatomy. You can’t live without one. If you read the Scriptures, you’ll also realize that the heart is a vitally important part of our spiritual wellbeing. In the NKJV, there are 832 occurrences of the English word “heart.”
The very first comes in the book of Genesis, Chapter 6, and it’s a doozy. “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.” [vs 5-6 NKJV]
The Hebrew word is “leb,” the heart, and used figuratively for the feelings, the will and even the intellect, also for the center of anything.
Mankind likes to think of itself as naturally noble, good and upright. God’s view is different. He sees what we try so carefully to hide – that great “center of self” that is only morally evil continually. We see it in self-indulgence, self-centeredness, self-ishness, self-inclination, on and on it goes.
We can try to rationalize and say that things have changed since the days of Noah when God first uttered his grief over mankind, but He was saying the same things in the days of Jeremiah [Jer 17:9] and in the days of Jesus [Matt 13:15], and I’m sure saying the same thing now. But thanks be to God, He didn’t leave mankind desperate and hopeless, He took action to change our hearts. More tomorrow.
(Link: https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health-topics/education-and-awareness/heart-month)
