March 2, 2026 Devo

I shared a very touching but tragic story today in my sermon. In 1986, in Patterson, CA, there was a 15-year-old boy named Felipe Garza Jr. who was in love with a 14-year-old girl named Donna Ashlock. One day, Donna started feeling bad, and her parents took her to the doctor. They discovered she suffered from an incurable heart disease that would take her life in a matter of months unless she received a heart transplant. When Felipe heard the news, he told his family that he was going to die so they could give Donna his heart. Since Felipe was a healthy young man, they wrote it off as the emotions of teenage romance.
Three weeks later, Felipe woke up on a Saturday morning complaining that his head hurt and that he was having a hard time walking and speaking. His parents took him to the hospital, and they, in turn, rushed him to a bigger hospital in Modesto. When his parents got there, they were told that their son was brain-dead. A blood vessel had burst in his head, and there was nothing they could do to save him. When asked if they would like to have his organs donated, his parents told them they did. “But his heart,” they said, “has to go to Donna.” The next day, Donna received the heart of her boyfriend, Felipe. Unbelievably, it was just as Felipe had predicted. Unfortunately, though Felipe’s heart kept Donna alive for three more years, eventually her body rejected it, and she died at the age of 17. What a wonderful, but sad, story of love.
We have a story like that, don’t we? God so loved us that He offered to take our hearts that are diseased with sin and give us His heart. A heart that is pure. A heart that is whole. And a heart that pulsates with His love and joy. But the heart He gives us is not a heart that only lasts for a few years, or even a decade. It is a heart that will beat for all eternity. It is a heart that will never die.
Think about that with me for a moment. One day, for all of us, these bodies will stop functioning, and our lives on this earth will come to an end. But that won’t be “the end.” Listen to the words of Isaiah again: “But those who die in the LORD will live; their bodies will rise again! Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy! For your life-giving light will fall like dew on your people in the place of the dead!” Our spirits will keep living after our bodies are laid to rest. And one day God will raise us up to be with Him for all eternity. We will have new bodies to go with our God-given hearts, and we will get to be with the lover of our souls forevermore. Now THAT’S a love story I want to be a part of! That’s God’s Word for you today.