As Christians, it can be really hard to imagine God telling us not to help someone. But according to Scripture, there are times when helping someone can actually be more hurtful than you realize.
So while we will be talking about letting people go and knowing when not to help them anymore, just remember that this is not really about withholding help. It’s really about not being enablers, not blocking God’s loving discipline, and not harming our own hearts because we want to help someone else so badly.
Therefore, here are 8 signs God is saying, “Stop trying to help that person.
1. When Someone Is Unrepentant of a Particular Sin No Matter What You Try, God Could Be Saying, “Stop Trying to Help Them”
In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul was discussing a man who was living in sexual sin despite already being warned. In 1 Corinthians 5:4-5, he wrote to the church, “When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”
When someone is unrepentant, it’s not helpful to keep trying to help them. Sometimes, the most loving thing to do is to let them experience the painful consequences of their choices.
In some instances, this means you might need to remove this person from your life. However, in other instances, this could just mean that you need to stop focusing on the sin you have been repeatedly warning them about. You might need to love them by no longer trying to help them in that particular area of their life.
When their life finally falls apart, you can be there to help them repent when they are ready (2 Corinthians 2:5-11).
2. When Someone Is Just Using You and Doesn’t Really Care About You, God Could Be Saying, “Stop Trying to Help Them”
When you study Jesus’ time on earth very closely, you will see there were many times when Jesus chose not to help certain people. Of course, he was very generous with his time and power, but when he saw that his help would do people more harm than good by leading them to misunderstand the meaning of his coming, he chose not to help.
For example, after Jesus fed the five thousand, they wanted more food from him. However, Jesus didn’t keep giving them endless meals. Why? Because he knew they were missing the point of the miracle (John 6:26). Also, in Mark 1, Jesus stayed up all night healing everyone who came to him. However, Mark 1:36-38 then states:
And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, ‘Everyone is looking for you.’ And he said to them, ‘Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.’”
In love, he stopped helping people when his help was blinding them to their real need for the gospel.
Likewise, if someone is just constantly using you, it’s unloving to let this keep happening. In love, you need to stop helping someone like this.
3. When Someone Just Wants to Argue Every Time You Try to Assist Them, God Could Be saying, “Stop Trying to Help Them”
Titus 3:10-11, “As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.”
4. When Someone Is Constantly Putting Their Burdens on You, God Could Be Saying, “Stop Trying to Help Them”
Galatians 6:2 states, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” However, in Galatians 6:5, he then states, “For each will have to bear his own load.” When you read these verses in context, the apparent contradiction disappears.
First, Paul tells us to bear one another’s burdens in the sense that we are loving Christians who are called to serve one another. However, in Galatians 6:3-4, Paul warns about the superiority that can arise in our own hearts when we help someone who is struggling. In that sense, Paul is saying that we will be judged not by how much we helped other people, but by how much we fulfilled the law of Christ, meaning we served God. In other words, serving people is not enough. We must serve people to receive praise from God and not from people (Matthew 6:2-4).
I say all of that because there are times when helping someone turns into that person turning to us like we are God. In idolatry, we take the praise, and that person doesn’t turn to God. This is bad for them and for us. Ultimately, they need Jesus, not us. When someone is casting all their burdens on you rather than on God, this will eventually crush you and you will disappoint them, because only God can handle all our burdens (1 Peter 5:7).
5. If Someone Is Lazy, God Could Be Saying, “Stop Trying to Help Them”
2 Thessalonians 3:10, “For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.”
Proverbs 19:19 (NLT), “If you rescue them once, you will have to do it again.”
6. If Someone Is Hurting You More Than You Are Helping Them, God Could Be Saying, “Stop Trying to Help Them”
If you have actually tried to help people before, you know that not everyone is easy to help. Sometimes, the very person you are trying to love ends up doing really hateful things towards you. While we should press through at times because we all need grace, there does come a time when God will lead us to protect our hearts and stop helping someone (Proverbs 4:23). Usually, that time comes when the scale is tipped into diminishing returns.
In other words, if you are damaging yourself so much in your effort to help someone else, your work is really being washed out by the damage being done to you. In the eyes of God, that person is not more important than you. He cares about you both. God isn’t going to sacrifice your emotional and spiritual well-being for theirs.
If they are hurting you more than you are helping them, let them go.
7. If Someone Is a Wolf Who Hunts Other Sheep, God Is Telling You to Stop Helping Them
While much should be said about the destruction that false prophets and bad pastors cause, not enough is said about the congregants who stubbornly refuse to look at the evidence against these leaders and blindly continue to support them. While these evil leaders will be judged for what they did to their victims, God will also judge those followers who financially and emotionally support wicked people who hurt God’s children.
While I’m not saying you will be judged for supporting someone who was doing bad things you didn’t know about, I am saying we all need to have our eyes opened to real evidence so that we are not helping bad people hurt others. If you willingly support others who are hurting innocent people, you will be judged for that.
1 Timothy 5:19-20, “Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.”
8. If Someone Doesn’t Want Your Help, God Will Tell You to Stop Helping Them
Matthew 7:6, “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.”
Matthew 10:14, “And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.”
