Episode 1177: God Helps Those Who Help Themselves

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,177 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] Linda Bjork: I'm Linda Bjork. I challenge you to invest in yourself. Invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to transform your life with hope is key.

[00:00:26] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer.

[00:00:37] Scott Maderer: I think when we think about calling and we think about purpose and we think about the direction that God has asked for us to do. Out of that. Calling comes the need for some sort of action for something, doing something. It's our relationships with things that are so key rather [00:01:00] than just welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:01:05] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true. In the inspired stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:26] In today's spiritual foundation episode about investing in yourself. I talk with you about that phrase. God helps those who helps themselves. I talk about how this is not really completely biblical, at least not when it comes to salvation. And I also talk about how this is not an excuse for inactivity. I think most of us have heard the phrase.

[00:01:49] God helps those who helps themselves. And in fact, a lot of. A lot of people believe that phrase is appli actually in the [00:02:00] Bible. It's a biblical phrase, but it's often commonly attributed at least nowadays to Benjamin Franklin. But it's actually probably older than that.

[00:02:11] This idea goes back at least to ancient Greece. This phrasing does refer to certain things that are in the Bible. And yet it's not biblical in its own way as well. If you go back to ancient Greece, there's things like no good ever comes of leisure and purposefulness and heaven never helps men who will not act or try first theyself and after call in God for the worker, God himself lends aid.

[00:02:39] In other words, if you're not doing anything, God's not gonna help. And in the old Testament, there's things like from de autotomy, the Lord will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to, or he who works, his land will have abundant food and he who chases fantasies lack judgment from [00:03:00] Proverbs.

[00:03:00] And in fact, there's a lot of things in Proverbs that could at least be used to support this idea of doing something brings on the blessings of the Lord and in the new Testa. For instance in Colosians there's, whatever you do work at it with all your heart is though working for the Lord, not for men or for Matthew, God blesses, those who realize their need for him and who mourn will be comforted or Timothy.

[00:03:29] If anyone does not provide for his relatives, that especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith in his worse than an believer. So there's definitely this idea that shows up. Even in the Quran and other idioms like Chinese and other different historical periods and other religious books.

[00:03:51] There's these ideas of, yes, you should do something. If you're going to actually [00:04:00] depend on God. , but there's actually two different frames to look at this from when it comes to salvation, when it comes to being saved, it's not through our works that we're saved. Instead it's through God's grace.

[00:04:16] It's not something that we earn or that we do. It's not because of who we are or what we do, but because of who God is and what God does. And in that respect, it's certainly false to say God helps those who help themselves. In fact, if anything, it's almost the exact opposite because God is defense for the helpless.

[00:04:41] God is taking the powerful and making them weak and taking the weak and making them powerful. It, God is caring for those who don't deserve it, or haven't earned it, or aren't in a position of power. , but there is some truth to this [00:05:00] concept as well, because if somebody says Hey, help me do something and you go do it for them.

[00:05:08] If they wanna get you to help them move, but then they don't do anything to help themselves. Instead you do all of the work. You're not helping, then you're doing it for them. And I think sometimes we think of God in that way. We think that God is gonna somehow come in. And do all of the work for us. God certainly can do that, but I don't think that's usually what we're expected to do.

[00:05:36] We say things like, oh, if you only had faith, it would take care of it. Or God works on his will in his timing, which is true. But that's not the same as saying, God, doesn't ask. To do anything. God, doesn't ask us to take action on our own things. In fact, I think when we think about calling and we think about purpose and we [00:06:00] think about the direction that God has asked for us to do out of that calling comes the need for some sort of action for something, doing something.

[00:06:12] It's our relationships with things that are so key rather than just. Inactivity or activity if we're doing the activity, because we want us to save us, then it's bad. But if we're doing that activity because we're partnering with God in activity and action to create a relationship, then. It's not bad.

[00:06:40] It's not so much what we do as what is the intent behind it? Are we looking to God first for the salvation? Are we looking to ourselves first? It's that old saying of the best day in my life was when I realized there was a God and the next best day was when I realized it [00:07:00] isn't me. because I think sometimes we put everything on ourselves.

[00:07:04] We put something that we are doing as resulting in what we got, as opposed to recognizing that it's in relationship with God that it comes about. That's why that phrase, God helps those who help themselves. So many things that I talk about on the podcast. Isn't really an either, or it's not all. Or all wrong instead.

[00:07:31] It's a, both, and again, there's truth there, but there's also non-truth. Thanks for listening.

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