My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever. Psalm 73:26
Today’s verse comes from the middle of a passage where the psalmist discovers the attitude that leads to victorious faith. And starting in Psalm 73:23 here is what he writes: “Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you. But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds” (Psalm 73:23-28).
In this passage the psalmist discovers that in this life, with all of its problems, our greatest privilege and purpose is a deep relationship with God (v. 28). He discovers that wicked people may prosper, but that we as followers of Christ have the greatest hope and valuable treasure in God himself, and that the Lord is always with us, guiding us by his Word and Spirit, supporting us by his power (vv.23-24) and finally receiving us into the splendor of heaven (v. 24). And finally like Paul, the great early church missionary and pioneer, our theme as we face life’s worries should be: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).
As we start a new year tomorrow we are going to start something new and different. What I am going to do is at the end of each verse of the day post I am going to give a daily Bible reading that comes from the One Year Bible. And then the next post will be an in depth exploration of a particular passage from that day’s Bible reading. The reading for tomorrow January 1 is: Genesis 1-2, Matthew 1:1-2:12, Psalm 1 and Proverbs 1:1-6.