God will help those who helped themselves

     This is something I had wanted to blog for quite some time already. Well the famous statement, "God will help those who helped themselves." To be honest, this statement was not written in the Bible. It is a statement whereby it was created during ancient time and was quoted widely by Ben Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. (Quoted from Wikipidea) Mind you!! Ben Franklin is an atheist.

     When he quoted this, does he know the Bible? Well I do not know this (perhaps he had read the Bible before) but there is no way in the Bible does it mention that God will help those who helped themselves. In the Bible, Jesus always mention that it was those who are weak that God will bless, or the children that God will bless, or perhaps the woman and those who are sick that God would bless.

The Beatitudes

5 And seeing the multitudes, He (Jesus Christ) went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. 2 Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying:

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit,

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 Blessed are those who mourn,

For they shall be comforted.

5 Blessed are the meek,

For they shall inherit the earth.

6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

For they shall be filled.

7 Blessed are the merciful,

For they shall obtain mercy.

8 Blessed are the pure in heart,

For they shall see God.

9 Blessed are the peacemakers,

For they shall be called sons of God.

10 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. 12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (NKJV)

    As of the Beatitudes, think of this. Who are those poor in Spirit? Who are those who mourn? Who are those who meek? Who are those who hunger for hunger and thirst for righteousness? Who are those merciful? Who are those who are pure in heart? Who are those peacemakers? Who are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake? Well think of it this way. The Beatitudes are for us, the imperfect being of God. The human being. It is for us, that Jesus teach this Beatitudes. Not for the perfect one. Not for the one who they think and know what to do.

     In fact, there are a lot of verses in the Bible that talks about caring for the needy, the poor, the weak and those unwanted.  Here's a famous verse from New Testament. It's taken from Mark 2: 13 -17.
   
Jesus Calls Levi (Matthew)

¹³ Then Jesus went out to the lakeshore again and taught the crowds that were coming to him. ¹⁴ As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up and followed him.

¹⁵ Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.) ¹⁶ But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees^[a] saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?^[b]”
¹⁷ When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” (NLT)

      Jesus called Levi aka Matthew the tax collector to follow Him and be His disciple. To everyone else, Levi is a scumbag who steal from the poor. But to Jesus, he is a gem. He is someone who is not able to help himself spiritually unless God intervene. If Jesus did not appear in his life, you think Levi would become Jesus' discipline? In fact, story about Jesus calling Matthew up is indicated in three out of all four Book of Gospel except in the Book of John. Matthew 9: 9 -13; Mark 2: 13 - 17 & Luke 5: 27 - 32. Do you actually wondered why is it important enough to be written in all three Book of Gospel? In fact do you actually wondered of all Jesus' disciple, not all of them were mentioned in the Bible. Only a handful of them and Levi aka Matthew's name were mentioned in three consecutive Book of Gospel. I am sure this Matthew is a very important person to be mentioned in the Bible.

      Well there are a lot of reason why is he mentioned in the Bible. I do not know why but my reason for why it is important enough to be written in all three Book of Gospel stated above for this blog purposes is because Levi was lost and helpless. He does not know what he is doing. In fact, what he does before he met Jesus was just to gain worldly desire. But after Jesus entered his life, he became a new being. In fact, it was told that the first Book of Gospel, The Book of Matthew was written by him with Godly inspired. As of the verse above entitled Jesus calls Levi (Matthew), do you realised that the name Levi was written with a 'in' and 'close' bracket the word Matthew? He was called Levi by birth by his parent and God gave him a new name, called Matthew, his Christian name. Or Godly name. Just like Simon. He is called Peter or Petra, the Rock by Jesus, his Christian name.
   
     In fact as you look back at the verse above about Jesus calls Levi (Matthew), the keyword for whatever topic I am sharing now is in Luke 2 : 17.

¹⁷ When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

     Healthy people don’t need a doctor — sick people do. When the word healthy is mentioned here, it does not mean physical health but rather, spiritual health. Only sick spiritually people need Jesus and we are all sick spiritual people. All of us in the world. None exempted except for Jesus Christ our Lord. 

     So please be aware of this, that all of us need Jesus and by saying that, all of us need God. So if we can help ourselves, do we need God. A big NO NO. But when we are sick spiritually, we still can work and earn our living. So do not take this for granted that since we are sick spiritually, we might as well ask God to help us in everything and became lazy. We still have to work to earn living but in all that we do to earn our living, we still need God. When we need God, things that we are unable to do, we let God help us. In fact, when there are things that we can and are able to do, we still include God. But do not put the statement of God will help those who helped themselves harshly on people and on yourself, in fact on everybody. But rather do the best that you can and let the rest for God to handle. Like it or not, we are all sick spiritually. We can only do our best and not all things. Amen.. =)