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| Does Jesus understand when you are hurting? |
Jesus knows. He's been there.
http://youtu.be/Gt0WluTpFTg - My Savior, My God - Aaron Shust
Do you ever feel like no one cares? Like no one understands the pain and suffering you're going through?
Jesus knows. And Jesus cares. He understands how it feels to plead with God for relief for what's coming. He knows the dread. He knows pain. He knows abandonment by friends. He knows humiliation and loneliness. What ever you're feeling, Jesus understands because He felt it, too.
He was tempted in every way that we are tempted. Oh, those temptations may not look exactly the same, but the root of the temptation is no different.
Why did He choose a lowly birth? Why didn't He come to earth as a powerful ruler born into a wealthy and prestigious family? I believe that He wanted to experience every struggle that His followers would experience so that we could know He understands when we hurt. He also wanted us to see the victory of His Resurrection. He wanted us to know the suffering is nothing compared to what God has for us in Eternity - if we put our trust in HIM.
How can we question His love when we see how much He was willing to endure so that we could be saved?
Jesus was God in the flesh. He didn't have to endure all those struggles. He could have "called ten thousand angels". He could have looked at us and saw ingratitude and disrespect. He could have given up on us. He didn't have to die. As Jesus stood before Pilate, Pilate became afraid when he heard that Jesus was claiming to be the Son of God. Pilate was afraid of what the Jews would do if he didn't give them what they wanted, but if Jesus was the Son of God...
John 19:1-11
1Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. 2 And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. 3They came up to him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!" and struck him with their hands. 4Pilate went out again and said to them, "See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him." 5So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, "Behold the man!" 6When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, "Crucify him, crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him." 7The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God." 8When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. 9 He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, "Where are you from?" But Jesus gave him no answer. 10So Pilate said to him, "You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?" 11Jesus answered him, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.
"You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above." Those were the only words He spoke. Pilate didn't have power over Him. Jesus willingly laid down His life for us so that we might live with Him in Eternity. He faced the torture and horrible death because He loved us. He submitted to the
suffering and shame out of love. Do we get that? Do we understand what it took, the price that was paid?
I'm ashamed to say that I tend to forget how much He was willing to bear for me.
John 10:17
For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father."
Why did Jesus choose to lay down His life? Because He loved us.
John 3:15-16
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
http://youtu.be/ijAKh_C89UE - Awesome God - Chris Tomlin
Isaiah 53
Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?
And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.
Thank You, Jesus.
http://youtu.be/TQ2jDUGcOsk - I have been there - Mark Shultz
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