What If Your Heart Stops?

What a dependable little organ is the human heart! Every day, including Sunday and holidays, this little engine keeps on pumping nonstop. And it continues even while we sleep.

The heart never complains about the weather and never asks for a vacation. It works best when treated well, but continues to serve even when working conditions are stressful.

How much we need the heart! If one eye is blind, we can still see with the other. If one ear is deaf, we can still hear with the other. If we lose a leg, we can still walk with a crutch. But we only have one heart.

While We Live our "pumping machine" is about the size of one's fist and weights just a little more than half a pound. It beats about 70 times a minute, 4200 times an hour, 100, 800 times a day, and 36, 792, 000 times a year. The heart of a 70 year-old person has beaten over 2.5 billion times.

The heart generates enough energy in 50 years to lift a battleship out of the water. In the average lifetime, it pumps enough blood to fill 3.3 supertankers!

According to one encyclopedia, the heart pumps blood through about 12, 000 miles of blood vessels in the human body. This is about the distance from San Francisco, California to Nairobi, Kenya, or half way around the world.

Although this organ, which keeps our blood constantly circulating, can be weakened by disease and abuse, it generally gives an excellent, ceaseless service for many years before it finally stops. When that happens...we die.

This brings us to a very personal but important question: If your heart should stop five minutes from now, would you go to heaven or hell?

I hope you can say the following with assurance: "Yes, I know that when I die I will go to heaven. I have turned to God in repentance, and received Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. I have put my trust in His precious blood shed on Calvary's cross to atone for my sins. In doing so, I have received the gift of God, which is eternal life. So I know I will go to heaven when I die."

But maybe all you can say is this: "No, I do not know where I will go after my heart stops, but I would really like to know for sure." If this is the case, read on.

The Bible tells us that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). The world "all" includes you and me. In fact, it includes everybody. But the Bible also says that "Christ died for our sins" - yours as well as mine (1 Corinthians 15:3).

To receive God's free gift of salvation, the Bible says we must trust Jesus as our personal Savior: "As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name" (John 1:12).

Here's how to receive Jesus Christ as your Savior: Ask Him to come into your life, to take away your sins, and to help you live for Him. Do this now, and should your heart stop in five minutes, you will know where you will spend eternity-in heaven!

-Fred Cowell