Getting the Help We Need - C H Spurgeon

I am the One who helps you, declares the LORD.

   -- Isaiah 41:14

This morning let us hear the Lord Jesus speak to each one of us:

"I will help you.

It is but a small thing for Me, your God, to help you.

Consider what I have done already.

What! Not help you?

Why, I bought you with My blood.

What! Not help you?

I have died for you; and if I have done the greater, will I not do the less?

Help you? It is the least thing I will ever do for you.

I have done more will do more.

Before the world began I chose you. I made a covenant for you, I laid aside My Glory and became a man for you; I gave up My life for you; and if I did all this, I will surely help you now.

In helping you I am giving you what I have bought for you already.

If you had need of a thousand times as much help, I would give it to you; you require little compared with what I am ready to give.

It is much for you to need, but it is nothing for Me to bestow.

Help you?

Fear not! If there were an ant at the door of your granary asking for help, it would not ruin you to give him a handful of your wheat; and you are nothing but a tiny insect at the door of My all-sufficiency.

I will help you.

O my soul, is this not enough? Do you need more strength than the omnipotence of the united Trinity? Do you want more wisdom than exists in the Father, more love than displays itself in the Son, or more power than is manifest in the influences of the Spirit?

Bring here your empty pitcher! Surely this well will fill it.

Hurry, gather up your wants, and bring them here -- your emptiness, your woes, your needs.

Behold, this river of God is full for your supply; what else can you desire?

Go forth, my soul, in this your might.

The Eternal God is your helper!"

   -- From Morning and Evening, by C H Spurgeon

Who knows the most about evil? From C S Lewis

From Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis


....as I said, the right direction leads not only to peace but to knowledge. When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right.

This is common sense really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly: while you are making them you cannot see them. You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk.

Good people know about good and evil; bad people don't know about either.

Good Grief...is this guy nuts?

I'm thinking about a 'not-so-old' song.... by Phil Vassar, about 10 years ago.

The kids screaming, the phone ringing

Dogs barking at the mailman bringing

That stack of bills overdue

Good morning, baby, how are you?

Got a half hour, a quick shower

Take a drink of milk, but the milk's gone sour

My funny face makes you laugh

Twist the top on and I put it back

There goes the washing machine

Baby, don't kick it

I promise I'll fix it

With about a million other things

Well, it's OK, it's so nice

It's just another day in paradise

Well, there's no place that I'd rather be

Well, it's two hearts

And one dream

I wouldn't trade it for anything

And I ask the Lord every night

For just another day in paradise.

Just another day in paradise? Is this guy nuts? His life is a complete mess....he put the sour milk back in the refrigerator! Can't pay his bills....Bunch of kids and the washing machine is broken....What gives him the right to be so happy? 

Why can't he see how miserable his life is...poor, pitiful man....almost makes you want to cry to see how blinded he is to the facts...well, I guess 'ignorance is bliss!'

Sometimes I wish I could be more like him!

Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content.     (Philippians 4:11 NKJV)

I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances (NIV)

Actually I don't have a sense of needing anything personally. I've learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I've found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. (The Message)

And for an old (700 years ago) translation by Wycliffe:  I have learned to be sufficient in which things I am. I say that as for need, I have learned in which things I am, sufficient to be.


Paul was in prison when he wrote these words.  Sometimes I live in my own self-designed and self-constructed prison of cheerless ingratitude.....

I guess I need to be more like that poor, pitiful man with the miserable life!

More quotes from Anne of Green Gables

Marilla Cuthbert: You set your heart too much on frivolous things and then crash down into despair when you don't get them.
Anne: I know. I can't help flying up on the wings of anticipation. It's as glorious as soaring through a sunset...almost pays for the thud.
Marilla: Well, maybe it does. But I'd rather walk calmly along and do without the flying and the thud.

Anne: I feel as though someone has handed me the moon... and I don't know exactly what to do with it.

Anne: It's such a splendid day! I pity people who aren't born yet for missing it. They may have good days, of course, but they can never have this one.

Anne: Kindred spirits are not as scarce as I used to think. Its splendid to find there are so many in the world.