"For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ" - Col 3:3
The Gospel is not a self help philosophy.
"Self help" aims to provide tools for individuals to build themselves up. It emphasizes the inherent sovereignty of the individual over circumstances. Self help is focused on... Self.
As someone who has read his fair share of books in the self help genre over the years, I must admit that there do seem to be many parallels between it and the Gospel.
Both seem to highlight the error of blaming others for our own failures, as well as emphasize the power of our thoughts and words. Both promise to deliver to us a life of joy and peace.
However there is one very major difference between self help philosophy and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The very self that "self help" seeks to help, the Gospel calls to die.
For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it - Luke 9:24
This is one of the central paradoxes of Christianity.
By fully surrendering one's own life to God through Christ, one comes into direct contact with real, authentic Life.
When we give God our life, He gives us His.
When we sacrifice the desires of our human nature, He enables us to become partakers of the Divine Nature.
He grants us freedom in a world where most people around us remain in bondage.
He allows us to rise above our circumstances and supernaturally experience unconditional peace and joy.
Christ went to the Cross to prove to us definitively that the last shall be first, the humble shall be exalted, and death shall lead to life.
I have been crucified with Christ.
It is no longer I who live,
but Christ who lives in me.
Gal 2:20
Just read this today; it fits! They will know us by our love and hopefully our humility.
WEEDS STAND PROUD, WHEAT BOWS BEFORE GOD
But what’s interesting is I read something written by an agricultural person who understood this wheat, and this type of weed. And he said, You can hardly tell them apart for a long, long time. And then suddenly, as they come into the stage of maturity, he said, the weed stands very tall and arrogant and proud, and the wheat field bows down low.