The world is full of semi-good people who help others. Semi-good is the same thing as semi-bad. So, put differently, the world is full of people who who help others while also hurting others. These “semi” people have enough goodness to gain trust, but retain enough ill will to harm people who need help the most once their goodness earns them status.
The truth that semi-good people never come to accept is their own need for help. They help others from perspectives of compassion and concern, the Good Samaritan, and shared love for everyone in the world. But, we all need help.
People who make the biggest difference in the world recognize that they need help just like everyone else. We don’t all need the same kind of help, for the most part, but we are all in desperate need of help and no one is an exception.
The man who helps others from the seat of benevolence and charity—but not from having his own need through which he identifies with those he helps—places himself above others. He sees himself as the demigod who needeth not, helping the lower, unfortunate “lessers” who are beneath him. We can only help others from pure goodness to the extent that we have received needed help ourselves. Any other position from which we purportedly “help” is for nothing beyond our own egos.
Christianity is a religion of pure help and need. It’s not about buildings and priests and liturgies. One can be a Christian without any of those things and many who have all of those things aren’t Christians at all, no matter how much they believe they are. The Christian God died because it was the only way to help humanity. The only One who needed nothing gave everything to help we who had no way of helping ourselves. He came as a baby named Jesus, no other. Acknowledging your own need for Jesus’s help is all it takes to be a Christian, nothing more.
Our universal need for help never ends. Even after receiving help today, we need more tomorrow. “Good” people are good because they help others, remembering that they also need help everyday.