Helping Others Helps Yourself

I ate at Mad Jack’s in KCMO today for the first time, which by the way  I recommend.  While waiting for my fish sandwich, I picked up a copy of the Coffee News. It’s free little paper with Quotes, Weird Stories, Jokes and of course your weekly horoscope!  Under quotes, this one really resonated with me. 

“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”  –Zig Ziglar

I first read Ziglar’s quote years ago. So it wasn’t a new thought.  But I considered it in a new context.  Often we think of getting what we want by helping others get what they want in terms of material success.  Financial gain.  Personal achievement. Position.  Or power. However, these are really false conceptions of success.

This month where I preach at Hickman Mills we are focusing on ministry.  We are teaching, preaching and putting into practice the Biblical admonition to “do good to all people.”  Our “Word of the Week” on Monday’s post was “serve.”  That’s what we’re trying to do.

From a Biblical perspective Christianity is about helping others.  In his book, The Success Journey, John Maxwell defines success as “knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential, and sowing seeds to benefit others.”  Then he comments, “No matter how long you live or what you decide to do in life, you will never exhaust your capacity to grow toward your potential or run out of opportunities to help others.”

But how does helping others, help us?

1. Through helping others we find and fulfill our purpose in life.  Think of the many professions in life that specifically focus on meeting the needs of others.  Physicians.  Police Officers. Firefighters. All of these and many others serve.  Christians, of course, enjoy a profession of faith (Eph. 4:1) through which we can serve both the physical and spiritual needs of a lost world (Mk. 16:15-16)

2. There is always a beneficial return on good done with a right motive. The Bible says, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.  For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. (Gal. 6:7-8)

There are three things I know about sowing and reaping. (1) You reap what you sow.  (2) You reap more than you sow.  (3) You reap later than you sow.  This is true in farming.  It is true in life.  It is true as we sow seeds of goodness.  Kindness.  Love.  And forgiveness.  You harvest the fruit of those attitudes and actions.  This is why Paul concludes this text by saying, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” 

3. Enjoying an abundant life comes when we help others. Jesus said he came that we might “have life in all its fullness” (Jn 10:10).  He also taught that greatness comes through serving.  “There are three keys to more abundant living,” wrote William Ward. “Caring about others, daring for others, and sharing with others.”  Or as Norman MacEwan expressed it, “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

4. Helping others empowers you.  Selfishness drains our energy.  Saps our strength. Debilitates our mental and emotional resources. The psychiatrist Alfred Adler said, “It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow-man who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others.  It is from such individuals that all human failure springs.”

When we help others we sow a seed of mutual benefit, glorify God, and lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven.  Want to really help yourself?  Lend a hand to help another!

–Ken Weliever, The Preacherman