Strength That Never Fails
Psalm 73:26
“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
You see, there’s a difference between the internal and the external. The external is fading, it’s temporary; but there’s something inside us that’s eternal, that’s from God, that’s linked to God, that doesn’t fade, that doesn’t wither.
Paul says, “Our outward man perishes, but our inward man is renewed day by day.” Whenever I read those words I always think of my first wife, Lydia. Towards the end of her life she suffered from a weak heart and yet she was an amazingly strong and active woman and continued so almost to the last week of her life. And when she felt her heart, her physical heart, failing, that’s what she would say: “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” She’d learned that lesson that we don’t let the external and the physical dictate to us, that there’s an inner source of life and strength which is not subject to the weakness and fluctuations of our human body.
Eventually God called her home in tremendous victory after almost fifty years of active Christian service and she left behind her a testimony of tremendous victory. But she’d learned that secret: the outward may perish but the inward is eternal. The inward is linked to God, the inward remains a source of strength when there’s little strength left in the outward.
—Derek Prince
-In this Psalm of Asaph, he recognized in himself, both his weakness and the strength of God, and the enduring character of God’s strength.
He mentions the fact that sometimes he can’t handle all the stress of life. In his own strength, he cannot make it. “My flesh and my heart fail.” He is talking about the natural endurance of man, which although considerable at times, cannot make it unaided through every kind of crisis that the world can dish up.
The good news is that the man who walks with God and depends on God is not limited to his natural strength, nor is his reward in life something merely temporal – that is pertaining to his life only. The reward of a child of God is God Himself. In this way, God is our portion.
And through our trials and difficulties, God Himself becomes the strength of our lives. God is the strength of our hearts. We are not limited to natural strength. Our hearts may fail as well as other hearts may fail towards us, but God never fails to be the strength of our hearts. We can always trust Him.
Our real portion, a real reward, is to know God and experience Him in closeness. That is what we need to strive for. God makes no mistakes, and He uses everything for His purpose in our lives, to bring us closer to Him, so that our trust in Him grows in His care. Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
The enemy may bring discouragement through many sources, but the Lord of our lives has the last word. His faithfulness and mighty power is greater than our failing hearts.
Oscar Leske
F/B – Signs Of Our Times
Understanding The Signs Of Our Times.com
Ascribed to by stevelampman.com
Transforming power; The Work of God on Behalf of Man
Dr. Lian Kim – Koinonia Baptist Seminary-Yangon, Myanmar