Exodus 2:23 NIV
During that long
period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and
cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.
If You Needed Help, Would You Ask?
A few weeks ago I went to an office supply store needing to order
business cards. I went to the copy
center and a very nice person asked me, “How can I help you?” Normally I would rather robotically just
answer the question the way it was intended to be answered. But this time something went wrong within my
brain and I started thinking about all the various ways I could use help. “Yes, I have a problem with a skin tag on my
eyelid. Do you have any
suggestions?” “Sure, how can I get my
daughter to keep her room clean?” “Do
you know what I should do about the sermon I need to deliver next week?” “How can I get affordable housing in
Fremont?” “What should I do about my
arthritic knees?” Fortunately for those
waiting in line behind me, I only told the clerk about my need for business
cards. Yet it would have been nice if
she could have helped me with the other matters too!
If God asked you directly, “How can I help you”, how
would you respond? Would you take the
question seriously? Would you tell Him
about your real concerns or just give a few trivial problems to solve? Do you want help from God or are you pretty
satisfied with how everything is going?
Would you consider the Lord your lifeline when nothing else works or are
you dependent upon Him to help you with even the smallest of issues? What part does God play in solving the
problems you face?
Nothing is quite as certain as this! If you are not struggling with something too
big for you now, eventually you will.
When you find yourself in such a predicament, you will fall into one of
two camps. You will either ask God for
help or you won’t. It is interesting but
considering that the Bible is a religious book mostly about God, you can find
in it plenty of accounts of those who show no interest in getting help from
God. The Pharisees were one of the most
religious people of their time. They
studied the Old Testament. They
carefully kept as many religious laws as they deemed possible. They even made up laws just to be careful to
keep God happy with them. But when Jesus
Christ, God in flesh appeared, they did not want to have anything to do with
Him. They often tested Jesus to see if
they could find flaws in His Bible knowledge.
They never though asked Him for help.
Of all the miracles of Christ, it does not seem that the Pharisees ever
found a problem they needed Him to solve.
Imagine if you knew of a man who had been born
blind, was blind through childhood and into adulthood and that man had been
miraculously healed by someone. What
would have been your reaction? Would you
have thought of things this person could do for you? Would you bring your needs to Him? The Pharisees certainly did care about the
miracle but they did not seem interested in getting His help with their own
problems. They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud
and opened the man's eyes was a Sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he
had received his sight. "He put mud on my eyes," the man replied, "and
I washed, and now I see." Some of
the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not keep the
Sabbath." But others asked,
"How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?" So they were divided. (John
9:13-16 NIV)
It is striking the total disregard the Pharisees had
for the good Jesus could do. They
clearly did not care about finding out how Jesus could help them also! Yet one of the Pharisees, Nicodemus came at
night wanting Jesus to help him with the questions he had. The priests who ran the Temple were Sadducees,
another religious group that was much less interested in what the Bible had to
say than the Pharisees and they did not have any confidence in God’s ability to
do anything miraculous. Despite all the
miracles happening in Jerusalem and the greatest of all the miracles, Jesus
raising Lazarus from the dead, the priests did not want Jesus’ help
either. In fact when they heard about
what happened with Lazarus, they wanted both Lazarus and Jesus dead. Then
the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. "What are we accomplishing?" they
asked. "Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will
believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and
our nation." Then one of them,
named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, "You know nothing
at all! You do not realize that it is
better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation
perish…. So the chief priests
made plans to kill Lazarus as well… (John 11:47-50, 12: 10 NIV)
When the Roman governor of Judea finally met Jesus,
having heard the reports of all the good things Jesus had done, he struggled
with the insistence of the Jewish priests that Jesus needed to be
executed. Meanwhile Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him,
"Are you the king of the Jews?"
"Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. When he was accused by the chief priests and the
elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate
asked him, "Don't you hear the testimony they are bringing against
you?" But Jesus made no reply, not
even to a single charge — to the great amazement of the governor.
(Matthew 27:11-14 NIV) Pilate, who
certainly had plenty of needs himself given all we know about the problem
Pilate had with his supervisors in Rome as well as the Jewish people he was
supposed to govern, did not look for any help from Jesus for anything. Pilate’s wife ironically did have a need. She begged her husband to not harm Jesus
because “…I have suffered a great deal
today in a dream because of him." (Matthew 27:19 NIV)
One of the strangest of all the accounts of the
humiliations and beatings Jesus suffered before He was crucified involved
Herod, Jewish king who ruled over the Galilean region. When
Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been
wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him
perform some miracle. (Luke 23:8-9 NIV)
Herod Antipas had plenty of problems, including an impending war with
his former father-in-law yet he saw no need of help from Jesus. He had heard of Jesus’ great miracles and
thought of Christ as a trick pony instead of the one who could make his life
right. Rather than ask Jesus to save him,
which is what he needed, he had Jesus beaten and joined with others in the
court mocking Christ. Yet interestingly
enough the manager of his household was married and his wife humbly came to
Jesus for help. …and also some women
who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom
seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod's
household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support
them out of their own means. (Luke 8: 2-3 NIV)
Consider carefully what Jesus announced at the
Temple during one of the great Jewish feasts.
On the last and greatest day of
the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty,
let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has
said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who
believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been
given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. (John 7:37-39 NIV) The entrance of the Holy Spirit into a life only
happens when someone wants Him. You must
come to Christ on your own if you are to have the Holy Spirit. God does not force Himself upon you. He says that if you are thirsty, come to
Him. You must need God and know you need
Him before He will do anything of substance with you. If you want the Holy Spirit flowing in and
out of you, clearing up your mind, straightening out the way you think,
impacting those around you and giving them through you the taste of Christ,
then you must ask Christ for this.
Jesus said, "Blessed
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew
5:3 NIV) Are you poor in spirit? Do you want God filling your life more than
anything? Have you become so in need of
God that you crave Him like an infant craves her mother’s milk? Try this little experiment. Pick out someone you care about and pray for
that person thirty days in a row. Ask for Christ to be that person’s
blessing. Put his or her name on your
mirror and pray for Christ to bless that soul.
See what God does in you as you pray: how the Holy Spirit joins with you
in your praying. Give your worries about
yourself a break and put your concentration on the Holy Spirit praying through
you for the one you have been given to bless in prayer. Out of you will flow streams of living water. Take the thirty day challenge. I wonder what might happen when God works
through thirty people committed completely to being vessels of God’s goodness
and grace for thirty days.
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