How Does God Help People?

“While Jesus lived on earth, he prayed to God and asked God for help. He prayed with loud cries and tears to the One who could save him from death, and his prayer was heard because he trusted God. And even though Jesus was God’s Son, he had to learn from experience what it was like to obey when obeying meant suffering.” Hebrews 5:7-8

“He prayed with loud cries and tears to the One who could save him from death…”

“…his prayer was heard because he trusted God.”

“…his prayer was heard…”

And…

Jesus was:

• Laughed at
• Mocked
• Spit upon
• Stripped naked
• Beaten
• Whipped
• Thorns shoved into his skull
• Brutalized by carrying his own cross through the streets
• Humiliated before all people
• Nailed to a rough, splintered wooden cross
• Speared through His chest
• Abandoned by those who professed love for Him
• And finally left to die between two criminals…seen as a criminal.

“…his prayer was heard…”

He was seen as a criminal after every single thing He said and did was for the welfare of others – including this final act of obedience which cost him every single thing that it means to be a human being. And THAT was always His plan.

But “…his prayer was heard…”

What does that mean?

Maybe, deep down inside, we believe, we hope, that a formula exists, something like “I pray, God hears, God helps me with what I am praying about.”

Did God “help” Jesus?

I guess what I’m thinking about, and it’s painful, is that while God hears us because we put our trust in Him, maybe His idea of help is not always our idea of help.

Jesus was God & human together, at once. Jesus didn’t “check His divinity at the door” and only exist in flesh – as flesh. Jesus was still equally God as the Father was God. While this is hard to resolve in our limited minds, the point is not that we fully understand the complexity it presents; the point is that, while being God, but living in flesh among us, Jesus trusted God the Father. Jesus proved His trust in the Father by submitting Himself to the Lordship of the Father through sacrificing His own humanity to save humanity.

God’s idea of help reached far beyond the temporary welfare of one “human.”

“Your attitude should be the kind that was shown us by Jesus Christ, who, though he was God, did not demand and cling to his rights as God, but laid aside his mighty power and glory, taking the disguise of a slave and becoming like men. And he humbled himself even further, going so far as actually to die a criminal’s death on a cross.” Philippians 2:5-8

So, “…even though Jesus was God’s Son, he had to learn from experience what it was like to obey when obeying meant suffering.”

But Jesus didn’t have to learn obedience as if He didn’t already know something; He was God, and as God, He knew…He knew. Rather Jesus felt, thought, performed obedience as a human, in the same way we would have to experience obedience. “This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.” Hebrews 4:15

However, Jesus knew the penalty mankind would exact upon Him for His obedience, and He knew that penalty was actually the point of all of it. He lived…to die.

Jesus said everything right.

Jesus did everything right.

And, again as God, all along, Jesus knew that after His words of life and deeds of righteousness were completed, His “end” would be the solution for the lost world He created and to whom He owed nothing.

Yet…He chose to obey.

Jesus chose to put down His life to lift up our lives.

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit could have simply created some other vehicle, system, or tool to accomplish the work. THEY – collectively through the earthly words, actions, and one final act by the ONE, chose to demonstrate to all the invisible forces of Heaven and Hell, and to all of His creation…us…what it looks like to prefer others over self – and the power and provision that can come from that choice.

Jesus dying a horrible death was always His endgame, no pun intended. He held that knowledge in His consciousness as He went day to day doing good. I cannot imagine the emotional and mental strain He must have felt as a human knowing that after all the good He was doing and did, the “reward” would not be applause, but annihilation. I think Scripture makes clear that Jesus didn’t view it that way, but Scripture also makes clear that Jesus FELT the very real human emotional, mental, and physical reality of what was coming.

I respect that our God allowed in sacred Scripture the fact that Jesus “prayed with loud cries and tears to the One who could save him from death.”

The Lord also allows us to see…

“He went a little farther. Then he fell with his face to the ground. He prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, take this cup of suffering away from me. But let what you want be done, not what I want.” Matthew 26:39

God let’s us see the battle in Jesus between his flesh and spirit, just as it is proclaimed in Galatians 5:17 “The flesh wars against the spirit and the spirit wars against the flesh.”

The humanity of Jesus was already dying as He was submitting Himself in obedience to the Father…and God allows us to see that struggle within Jesus.

We will all have similar struggles between what is ultimately our own selfish desires and the Spirit of God within us. It is the same Spirit who labors within us to develop within us the “mind of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 2:16.

And that leaves us with the Spirit of God’s counsel to us:

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” Romans 12:2