Weekly Devotion: My Portion

“I cried unto thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.” Psalm 142:5

All of us by nature have an acute desire for, and direct interest in, those things we like to call MINE, in “the land of the living”. As Christians though we need to keep in mind the example set forth in the Old Testament by the priestly tribe of Levi who had no earthly portion or “part”.

“Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the LORD is his inheritance, according as the LORD thy God promised him.” Deuteronomy 10:9

This is why we are to be “strangers and pilgrims” on the earth (Hebrews 11:13; 1 Peter 2:11). This is why we are to “lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven” (Matthew 6:19) and to “set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2). God is to be our “portion”, His mission is our “part”, and He is our “lot” in this life and the next!

“The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot.” Psalm 16:5

When we get saved; by grace only, through faith only, in Christ only, we become “partakers”, i.e. one who “takes part”, in “the heavenly calling” (Hebrews 3:1), and have an “inheritance” with the saints in light (Colossians 1:12). Just as you would take a knife and cut yourself or others a “portion” of food, God uses the sword of the word of God, to divide up his inheritance. Although a born again believer cannot be unborn, he or she can lose / waste their inheritance / “portion”, just like the prodigal son.

“And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living…the younger son…took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.” Luke 15:12, 13

Friend, to borrow a truthful line from the movie Gladiator, “what we do in life, echoes in eternity”. Although we do not work to get saved, we should work because we are saved, and John exhorts us not to lose those things we have worked for, but to receive a “full reward”!

“Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.” 2 John 1:8

My conviction in these matters is two-fold; the first is to Christians to not lose their inheritance due to sin. Don’t be like the servant in the parable of the pounds (Luke 19:11-27) who had his inheritance “taken away”. Don’t be like the one who takes away from God’s word because “God shall take away his part out of the book of life” (Revelation 22:19). And don’t “deny him, he also will deny us” from reigning with him (2 Timothy 2:12). Secondly, if you have never been saved, my desire for you is to “call upon the name of the Lord” (Romans 10:13) and be saved today, so that your “portion” in eternity is not with those in the lake of fire…

“And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Matthew 24:51