Fact Check, 48

~ Help Yourself & God Will Help You ~         

Bible Quotation?  ~  “God helps those who help themselves.”

The Bible Says  ~  Nowhere will you find this thought in Scripture.  In fact, the opposite is true.  When we are broken and realize our need of help, and ask God for help, then He will help.  “In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, and my cry entered His ears” (2 Samuel 22:7).  “Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness!  You have relieved me in my distress; have mercy on me, and hear my prayer” (Psalm 4:1).  “In my distress I cried to the Lord, and He heard me” (Psalm 120:1). 

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.  For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it’” (Matthew 16:24-25).

The Significance  ~  When we are realistic God can help us.  “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).  “And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.   Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake.  For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

Comments  ~  In many societies hard work is considered a virtue—and it should be!  It is also a Christian principle and virtue.  “God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).  

In a careful study of Scripture you will find one of those proverbial two-sided coins.  On one side is our total dependence upon God while on the other side is our absolute responsibility toward God.

~ Robert Lloyd Russell, ABUNDANT LIFE NOW

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