Ask Your Preacher
Helping Others
Thursday, May 30, 2019How long does God expect for you to help someone who is doing very little to help himself? This person also puts a huge guilt trip on me… saying that he will commit suicide, be homeless, and get on drugs if I make him take care of himself. What does God expect of me? I want to do right by my Savior.
Sincerely,
Feeling Conned
Dear Feeling Conned,
The Bible says that there is a balance between helping people and enabling laziness and other sinful behavior. For example, God says that if someone won’t work, the cure is that they shouldn’t eat either (2 Thess 3:10). God commands us to not let people “mooch” off of us because that is just helping them to continue to sin.
Don’t get us wrong; God also says that it is very important that we help carry one another’s burdens in Gal 6:2. However, just three verses down in Gal 6:5, it says that everyone must also be ready to carry their own burdens. The point is this – we should ALWAYS help those who are overwhelmed by a crisis, but when someone is unwilling to help themselves… you can’t drag them to success.