235. Help to Help Yourself

I have given the one who is mighty the power to help; I have exalted one chosen from the people. [Norw.] Psalm 89:19.

Jesus was a mighty man; He dared to take a path that went directly against the opinions of people and all the doctrines of the learned. And through Him help is available, if you realize that you need help. The mighty work that Jesus did was that He believed God’s voice within Him and acted upon it, whether that suited His flesh or not. Help to live this same life is available in Him—help to overcome our self and help to overcome the evil.

A body You have prepared for Me. Heb. 10:5. That is where you can find help. Through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, we have been sanctified to become holy. Heb. 10:10. By this body, we are freed from the law. Rom. 7:4. By this body we are given power, so that we can consider ourselves dead to sin. Rom. 6:11. And in this body, we are reconciled with His body of flesh by death. Col. 1:22.

We are then baptized with one Spirit to be one body. All help rests in this body. For the body is the Lord’s, and He gave His flesh for the life of the world. This flesh is truly food, and the blood of this body is truly drink. We have nothing good outside of Him, but we find everything within the body, where all the fullness of God dwells bodily. God will judge those who are outside, that is, outside of the body, but the body is the church, and the body belongs to the Lord. Therefore, all sin that a person can do is outside the body (1 Cor. 6:18) because the body is a temple for the Holy Spirit.

Now we know where help has been placed, so we do not need to look very far for it. The heart of a fool is at the ends of the earth, but that is not where we find help. Search inwardly for help. Acknowledge the judgment of the light over your own body, and the judgment will turn to righteousness. Sin is condemned in the flesh. Rom. 8:3. In the body of His flesh we are reconciled by His death. Therefore, we must judge ourselves so as not to be judged together with the world. All judgment points inward; for now is the time for judgment to begin at the house of God. 1 Peter 4:17; 1 Cor. 11:31. The judgment goes within, into our very being, and this new and living way, which we are to walk on, is the same way that the Judge, who stands at the door, had to walk.

There is no help outside the body. Everything that is visible has been created through Christ; it is for Him and for His use. As a result, all good things will come to us and be added to us by this body—that is, when we seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness. He who seeks riches and honor elsewhere will lose his life, but he who forsakes everything for Jesus’ sake will gain everything that has been created through Him and for Him. This is also why it’s written, “Give and it shall be given unto you!” Forsake it, and it will come back to you! Let go, and you shall receive!

Some will say this is rather backward. No, it is not backward, but people by nature are backward. God had to turn things around in order to put things in order.

So do not be grieved about what you have to lose, let go of, and give: you will receive good measure, pressed down, shaken together, according to the measure in truth and righteousness which God distributes to all those who are in the Body—and who trust in Him completely.

By this we understand that help comes from God, and that it comes from very different avenues than we would imagine.

So do not be anxious about what you shall eat and drink! Just see to it that you abide in Him, where the help is and has always been, and then all good gifts will come to you through Him for whom all things are made. And you will experience in the days to come that God will pour out His riches of goodness toward you in Christ Jesus.