The idea of “God helps those who help themselves” is not only not in the Bible, but it comes from the marriage of a protestant ethic of blessings and a modern economic theory of capitalism success and leaves us feeling like we have to work to earn God’s favor, God’s love, and God’s blessings. The truth is that there is nothing we can do to get God to love us more or less than He already does. He loves us and he wants to help us because it’s who He is.

Jesus told us in life there would be trouble (John 16:33). God is graceful and merciful, and He has overcome the world. God never expects us to handle the problems that we encounter alone.

We are the most pleasure-seeking society in history, and yet as a society we deal with increasing rates of major depressive episodes, anxiety attacks, and suicide. We use the mantra “Just do what makes you happy.” It doesn’t work. Jesus tells us in Scripture how we can be truly “happy”.

All people, not just Christians, are drawn to the sacred—sacred things, sacred places, sacred acts—because we love the feeling the sacred stirs deep within us. There is a desire in our culture to be good and to be sincere, but there is also a difference between sacred things and sacrifice, and all religions are not the same.