God's grace is with you

Philippians 1:30 (NLT)

30 We are in this struggle together. You have seen my struggle in the past, and you know that I am still in the midst of it.

It is not simply the suffering, but the cause, and not only the cause, but the spirit, which makes the martyr. A man may suffer in a bad cause, and then he suffers justly; or in a good cause, but with a wrong mind, and then his sufferings lose their value.

Comedian Jay Leno once conducted a "man-on-the-street" interview by asking random people to name one of the Ten Commandments. The most common response was something that wasn't even on God's original list—"God helps those who help themselves." That phrase, which is often used to emphasize a get-your-act-together approach to salvation, is often attributed to the Bible.

But the phrase is more closely tied to non-biblical sources. In a first century A.D. Greek fable, a wagon falls into a ravine, but when its driver appeals to Hercules for help, he is told to get to work himself. One of Aesop's fables has a similar theme. When a man calls on the goddess Athena for help during a shipwreck, she tells him to try swimming first. Both of these stories were probably created to illustrate an already existing proverb about helping yourself first.

A French author from the 1600s once said "Help yourself and Heaven will help you too." But it was the 17th century English thinker Algernon Sidney who has been credited with the now familiar wording, "God helps those who help themselves." Benjamin Franklin later used it in his Poor Richard's Almanack (1736) and it has been widely quoted ever since. A passage with similar sentiments can be found in the Quran, Chapter 13:11: "Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves."

But that phrase never appears in the Bible, and the way it's often used (as a self-help approach to salvation) is the exact opposite of the Bible's message of salvation by God's grace. [Matt Woodley, editor PreachingToday.com; source: "God helps those who help themselves," Wikipedia (last accessed August 5, 2014)]

Understand the word of God and pray for His wisdom that you might be able to work through the struggles in life that lay ahead. For God will never leave your side, but will always be there to help you. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people.