Welcome to today's encouragement from your friends at Our Daily Bread.

The devotional for today titled Heart Healthy was written by Arthur Jackson.

The human heart is an amazing organ. This fist-sized pumping station weighs between 7 and 15 ounces.

Daily, it beats around 100,000 times and pumps 2,000 gallons of blood through the 60,000 miles of blood vessels in our bodies. With such a strategic

assignment and heavy workload, it's understandable why heart health is central to the well-being

of the entire body. Medical science encourages us to pursue healthy habits because the condition of our heart

and the quality of our health go together. While medical science speaks authoritatively about our

physical hearts, God speaks with even greater authority about a heart of another kind. He addresses the mental,

emotional, spiritual, and moral center of our being. Because the heart is the central processing

unit of life, it must be protected. Proverbs 423 admonishes us to guard your heart, for everything you do

flows from it. Safeguarding our hearts will help us with our speech, compel us to be

discerning with our eyes, and choose the best paths for our feet.

Regardless of age or stage of life,

when our hearts are guarded,

our lives are preserved,

our relationships are protected,

and God is honored. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is drawn from Proverbs chapter 4 verses 20 through 27.

My son, pay attention to what I say.

Turn your ear to my words.

Do not let them out of your sight. Keep them within your heart,

for they are life to those who find them, and health to one's whole body. Above all else,

guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Keep your mouth free of perversity.

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