- Strength and Portion
Psalm 73:26
My flesh and my heart faileth:
But God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever.
“I am weak, but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me.” My flesh is my natural sinful soul, which is connected to and controls the body. The selfish flesh is the playground where the Bully Sin rules and eats our lunch. The flesh is not intrinsically evil or sinful in itself, but it is weak and easily gives in to the stronger ruling power of Sin and Temptation and to the subtlety of the Evil One. “My flesh faileth.” The flesh cannot be improved. All the seven step self-help books will not improve my flesh and my behavior and move me forward one inch (except temporarily and then I fall back again). One cannot work on the flesh to make a better person. Trying to do good works and stop sinning by the power of reason and will and emotions only leads to frustration after failure after frustration. Only one thing can be done with the flesh: kill it, crucify it, crush it, drown it, and just die to self. The Holy Spirit will do this through the Gospel and then He will come in and gently take over in place of the bully. He binds the strong man.
“My heart faileth.” The heart is the same as the flesh without the body; it is the spirit and the soul, but without faith the spirit is dead and the soul is allowed to run wild according to its selfish desires. Thus my heart faileth. But upon hearing the Gospel the Holy Spirit creates faith in the dead spirit and makes it alive again by coming to live there. When a believer is born again by faith in Christ then God is the strength of his heart. Now the spirit and the flesh are opposed to each other, and by His strength (and only by His strength) He overcomes temptation, defeats the Enemy, and delivers from Evil. God promises to fight, and win, my spiritual battles for me in my heart.
And this promise is forever true: God is my portion forever. Portion = lot, inheritance, destiny. In other words, I cannot lose, ever. By myself I will fail and lose and live a defeated life; with God I will succeed and win and live an overcoming life, every day and forever.