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Help of the Helpless
By John Gavazzoni
Daring to extrapolate the full implications of Jesus' statement, "Without Me, you can do nothing," I reached the conclusion years ago that the point of intersection of the sovereignty of God and the collective believers' subjective state is an intersection of the Father's decision to act, and our fully recognized state of utter helplessness until He does.
I expect to see indication of the impending, final, consummate move of God in an accelerated realization of our poverty of spirit; that is, of having no autonomous spiritual resources in ourselves. As long as we imagine that God is awaiting our facilitating of His purpose, we deceive ourselves into thinking that we are not, in fact, spiritually bankrupt in and of ourselves and bereft of any ability to contribute to the doing of God.
Nowhere are we told that we are to be God's helpers, but rather, God is "our help in time of need." But we must face how great is our need. Does the Lord simply step in to add His strength to ours? Is that the meaning of the Lord as our Helper? No, certainly not! He is the Helper of the utterly helpless, not of those who merely need Him to supercharge their efforts.
There is no positive place in the administration of God for joint-enterprise; no place for, "If you will do your part, God will do His"; "God helps those who help themselves"; 'God is waiting for you to......"; "You need to let God...."
The Lord has granted us in Christ a non-contributing, fully-participating partnership in the fulfillment of His purpose for man for His glory, a glory that He freely gives by grace to us without any element of meriting the same. Thus, nothing can substitute for a good dose of failure to qualify one for this mode of participation.
The world exalts those whom it judges to "have the right stuff," but it is very apparent in scripture's record of the history of many of the men and women within whom God worked, that at some point their preparation for service brought them, not to a place where they said, 'I'm ready, Lord; I've got the right stuff,' but rather, if I may paraphrase a rhetorical collage of their combined attitude: "What, me? You've got to be kidding, Lord. I don't have what it takes."
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