John 14:16,26;15:26 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. ESV

I quote the ESV here because the KJV uses the word Comforter. He is the Comforter but He is also the Helper. Both resolve the issue of loneliness. We are not alone in these issues of our daily salvation. Here again we speak to the issues of the blessed help provided by God in achieving our daily salvation.

The biggest distinction in using the version Helper is in the area of cooperative effort. There are things that we cannot do so God does them for us. There are a far greater number of things that we can and should do for ourselves. In this our Helper teaches us what needs to be done and how to do it. We have the knowledge and we have the tools, but it is still up to us to do something.

James 1:22-24 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

The first and most important example I can think of is you have a bible but the Holy Spirit does not pick it up and read it for you. You have to read the Word in order for the Holy Spirit to do His part in John 14:26 where he brings the Word into remembrance. You cannot remember what you have never read.

He is the Helper, cooperation is required of us.

Psalm 3:2 Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God. Selah.

We have been talking about using the tools that God provides in our daily salvation. You might have thought I took a detour into prayer but prayer is our greatest source of help when it comes to salvation.

Psalm 28:7 The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.

Psalm 69:13 But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O Lord, in an acceptable time: O God, in the multitude of thy mercy hear me, in the truth of thy salvation.

Let me ask you a pointed question and if it should prick your conscience say ouch.

How much of your prayer life is directed at your own salvation? How much help do you seek with any amount of sin in your life? Do you consider yourself “good to go”?

We remember what we were in that past life, before Christ. I see a real danger in my relationship with Christ when I look at the distance I have traveled from the grave of my old man. That is not the object, to distance ourselves from the past. Our objective is to draw closer to God and the obstacles to that closeness lay ahead of us, not behind.

Psalm 17:15 As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.

Our satisfaction is in Christ, not in ourselves. Yes, I have come a long way but I am not nearly close enough. As the song says, “Draw me close to You!” That is a prayer God will honor.