Help Yourself

Common [Southern] words of hospitality are “help yourself” or “make yourself at home.”  Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean get up and do it yourself or kick your shoes off.  It’s also not an invitation to take a seat in Mr. Bill’s recliner!

 

It’s no secret how deeply the Apostle Paul loved and was devoted to Jesus Christ.  Why, then, would he write these words: “For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ  for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” (Romans 9:3, ESV).  This tells us he was willing to relinquish all Christ was to him for the sake of his friends – those who didn’t know the Savior.  I doubt many Christians fully understand the seriousness of Paul’s statement.  Oswald Chambers puts it like this: “Paul said he knew how to be a ‘doormat’ without resenting it, because the mainspring of his life was devotion to Jesus.”  Here, God is telling every Christian [through Paul] the depth of commitment He longs for.  Paul’s relinquishing of himself to God is also heard in these words, “I will most gladly spend and be spent …” (2 Corinthians 12:15).  You see, not easily but quite simply, God wants to hear us say, “Father, come on in – make Yourself at home – help Yourself to all of me.”  Only then will we know the utter Delight of Christ!