SELF HELP or JESUS HELP
Jn 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life!”
The book market today has a plethora of ‘self-help‘ books! How to be a better leader, manager or person. How to exercise, diet and improve ones life!
Such books and guru’s encourage us to feel good about ourselves, release our inner strength, believe for good things, do unto others as you would have them do unto you!
Question: Why are these books dangerous for Christians?
Answer: The danger is in the ethos, ‘self-help‘ Such books encourage us to build a life of our own making, overcome in our own strength, see ourselves as our own ‘Saviour’, thus making ourselves into little gods! (Gen 3:4,5)
Col 2:8 Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ.
Whereas the New Covenant invites us to find such life in Christ:
Col 2:6,7 Just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow Him. Let your roots grow down into Him, and let your lives be built on Him.
Christ is our Saviour and God, our life, strength, healer, helper, deliverer and future hope.
Jn 10:10 I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. Col 2:10 You are complete in Him.
BY THEIR FRUITS YOU WILL KNOW THEM (Mt 7:20)
Driven to Extremes:
Using ‘self-help’ philosophy to build our life upon drives to 2 extremes:
a) We win, we’re successful, we’ve reached our goal, we’re elated, pleased with ourselves!
b) We lose, we fail, we fall away. We’re defeated, hopeless, miserable, depressed!
Jer 17:5 Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man (self) and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord.
Both these extremes are rooted in pride! It is our ‘self ability’ that has either won or lost and constitutes both these ways as dead works!
Does that mean the ‘self-help’ industry cannot help the believer. Of course not! Much of self help material contains biblical principles! The key is to first pass all things through the grid of trusting Christ.
We look away from self to Christ. Hence, when we win, we praise and honour Him. When we lose, we look to Him to help us rise up and praise Him for His strength and hope!
Jer 17:7,8 “Blessed is the man who trusts and hopes in the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, Which spreads out its roots by the river. Its leaf will be green, and it will not cease from yielding fruit!
Phil 4:8 Meditate (think) on these things.
MEDITATION POINT: Let us pass everything we do through the grid of trusting Jesus! He is the only one to proclaim, “I am the way the truth and the life.” (Jn 14:6)
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