Help Yourself To Me, Lord!

My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Galatians 2:20

I love what Oswald Chambers says about this verse in his classic devotional book, My Utmost for His Highest. During a lecture to his students at Bible Training College in Clapham Common, London, he said, “This college is an organization that is not worth anything. It is not academic; it is for nothing else but for God to help Himself to lives. Is He going to help Himself to us, or are we taken up with our conception of what we are going to be?”

Wow! My heart replies back: Lord, help Yourself to me! Take seconds, thirds, fourths, and fifths!

Isn’t it wonderful that we will never be sent back to the kitchen, banned from sitting at God’s banquet table to feast on His perpetual potluck dinner prepared just for us in Christ Jesus? It’s a perfect dinner spread out on white linen tablecloths, with real silver and gorgeous china plates—all God’s best He has offered to us. He wants us to help ourselves to His presence, too!

We may bring a fancy dish or a simple one because we all have faith of different sizes, and we have different styles of expressing our faith and worshiping Him. He delights in variety because it is evident throughout His creation. Just as no two people are alike and each snowflake is different, so it is with our unique places and contributions at His banquet table.

Yes, He loves variety, but He wants the same wholehearted devotion from each one of us. He wants all of us to hear and respond, “Help Yourself to our lives, Lord!”

In what way can we say, “Lord, help Yourself! Help Yourself, Lord, to us”? Perhaps we can demonstrate His love to someone this week. Maybe we could commit to letting His character shine brightly in the ways we respond to others. Or maybe we could ask Him whether He has a new direction for our lives.