Friday, April 15, 2016
Helping Those That Help
Growing up I heard a saying, ‘The Good Book says ‘God helps those that help themselves.’” By the Good Book I think they meant the bible. However, in all my years of study, I have never found this scripture, or anything close to it. There are scriptures about helping that are sometimes not appreciated for all they contain. One such scripture is second of the two that sum up the Law and the Prophets.
Matthew 22:35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
The first of the commands is about loving God above all else. There is much to be said about that command, but we will leave it for the moment. Let’s focus on loving our neighbor. This is the second command.
It says to love our neighbor as our self. Most likely, we all adhere to that pretty well. The problem here is that many people do not love themselves. In fact, they don’t even like themselves. However, they are treating the people around them, their neighbors, the way they feel they should, tied to how they feel about themselves. The end result is a wide array of possibilities from exalting others far above themselves to just plain treating people badly. For us to truly fulfill this scripture, we must come to grips with self forgiveness and focusing on God instead of us and our past, or whatever is giving us a negative self image. Only then can we truly love others well.
Prayer
Father, we exalt You. You alone are King. Praise the name Yahuah! Send us now Your overwhelming provision. Heal up our hearts and minds. Deliver us from the thief. Set us free. Restore Your people one hundred times one hundredfold that which has been taken. We ask these things in the name of our Messiah Yeshuah (Jesus). Amen.