◄ HELP ►

Old Self Life

Do you often ask for God’s help? “Help ME do this God” and “help ME do that Lord” or “Help ME change myself…” “Help ME stop being like this Father,” and “help ME start being like that?” Think! God is never going to change the old YOU – the old self-life!

Christ’s Life

When God saved you, He did not plan to help you live YOUR life. God purposed that HE would live Christ’s life in you!! Immaturity sees the Lord Jesus as helper in MY Christian life. Maturity knows the Lord as the very LIFE itself, within my new man.

J.E. Conant:-

J.E. Conant wisely wrote the following:- “Christian living is not our living with Christ’s help, it is Christ living His life in us. Therefore, that portion of our lives that is not His living is not Christian living; and that portion of our service that is not His doing is not service; for all such life and service have but a human and natural source, but Christian life and service have a supernatural and spiritual source.” That supernatural, spiritual source – is the Spirit of Christ in you. As Paul wrote ‘For me to live is Christ.’ It is not God helping the old man to live. God will not help your old man, your old ‘self’ to live!!! “God works (in your new man) both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” Phil.2:13

William R. Newell:-

William R. Newell puts it this way:- “Satan’s great device is to drive earnest souls back to beseeching God for what God says has already been done! You are a new creation in Christ – so the old self must be done away with. The old self must remain on the cross – while the new self is Christ in you. God did not help the sinner to be born again... He gave him a new life in Christ. And God won’t help the old you. He’ll conform the new “You-Life” into “Christ-life”. “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and you are complete in Him.”

Old and New Man

You are not trusting or honouring God when you ask Him to help YOU. You.. the Old “I” must remain on the cross/ The old man must be crucified.The new man in Christ alone is the one that God lives in and works through. Don’t ask him to help you control your temper or your greed.. your lust or pride. These are works of the flesh that must be nailed to the cross and remain there. The Spirit of God lives in the spirit of man, the new man in Christ, which cannot sin, as John told us. “Whoever has been born of God (the new man in Christ) does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God”.

Sinless Perfection??

Does that make you sinless or me? NO !!!! What a joke! Remember…. Last week….. last month……….. last year! Remember the many times you have fallen into sin? I certainly can, and it’s painful. But if we confess our sins, to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1John 1:9

Carnal or Spiritual

Your Soul that has the capacity to sin, and will continue to until we are with Him. Your old soul-life is the old man in Adam, the carnal self that can work for ill. Your new soul-life is the new man in Christ, the spiritual man that works for good. Your soul can submit to the leading and guiding of the Spirit within your spirit – or your soul can grieve and quench the Spirit of God with rebellious acts. Your soul can rebel. Your soul can allow the sinful flesh to raise its ugly head and rule your life. Never ask God to help your soul yield to His Life working in your new life.

F. J. Huegel:-

F. J. Huegel declares: “When a Christian’s prayer life springs from a right position (a thorough adjustment to Christ in His death and resurrection), a vast change in procedure follows: Much of our begging fails to register in heaven because it fails to spring from right relations with the Father in union with Christ in death and resurrection: in which position one simply appropriates what is already his. ‘All things,’ says the Apostle Paul, ‘are yours, and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s’ 1Corinthians 3:21,23

His Will

We’re not to approach God’s throne asking Him to help us and bless our plans. We are to seek Him to do His work in us – His will, His plans. We are to seek His will in our life, to live and do to His good pleasure. We are to trust His will, in all the decisions we make and the problems we face.

F. J. Huegel

When we ask God to help us, we are not trusting Him but rather ourselves! Don’t ask God to help you in this or to help you sort that out, for He won’t – but when you come to Him in humility and helplessness, He’ll move heaven for you. When you cease from your own strivings and say, Thy Will Be Done In My Life… He will move the greatest mountain, that you’ve struggled with for years.

Stamford:-

Stamford writes the following:- “If only I were stronger,’ we say, ’I could overcome my violent outbursts of temper, ’and so we plead with the Lord to strengthen us. We plead with Him to help us exercise more self-control. But this is altogether wrong… This is not Christianity. God’s means of delivering us from sin isn’t by making us stronger and stronger but by making us weaker and weaker. “This is surely a peculiar way of victory”, you say; but it is the divine way. God sets us free from the dominion of sin, not by strengthening our old man but by crucifying him; not by helping him to do anything but by removing him….by removing him from the scene of action.”

Lifetime Learning

Oh, what a wonderful joy it is to realise that the pressure is not on ME to act. Does it concern you that you have not seen this before? Well quit your disquiet!! Rejoice that He is opening up His truths to your heart today. God delights to take 20, 30, 50, 80 years to bring His saints to such understanding. He has been unfolding such truths to godly men down through the centuries, and I suspect that we all have much more to learn, in His time and His way.

Greater Helplessness

It is not that we should be asking the Lord to help US, we should be seeking a greater capacity to helplessness. We should be relying on Him and on His strength, and Him alone. “When I am Weak,” wrote that great soldier of the Lord’s army, the apostle Paul... “When I am Weak, then I am Strong.” 2Cor.12:10 Don’t beg the Lord for help. Appropriate that which is already yours in Christ:-