Why was Christ chosen out of the people? Speak, my heart, because heart-thoughts are best. Wasn’t it so that Jesus might be able to be our brother, in the blessed tie of family bonds? Oh, what relationship there is between Christ and the believer! The believer can say, “I have a Brother in heaven; I may be poor, but I have a Brother who is rich. He’s a King, and will He allow me to go without while He is on His throne? No! He loves me; He is my Brother.” Believer, wear this blessed thought like a necklace of diamonds around the neck of your memory; put it, as a golden ring, on the finger of recollection. Use it as the King’s own seal, stamping the requests of your faith with the confidence of success. He is a brother born for adversity (Proverbs 17:17)—treat Him as such. Christ was also “chosen from the people” that he might know our wants and sympathize with us. “He faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin” (Hebrews 4:15 NLT). In all our sorrows, we have His sympathy. Temptation, pain, disappointment, weakness, weariness, poverty—He knows them all, for He has felt them all. Remember this, Christian, and let it comfort you. However difficult and painful your road, it is marked by the footsteps of your Savior. And even when you reach the dark valley of the shadow of death and the deep waters of the swelling Jordan, you will find His footprints there. In any place we can go, He has been our forerunner. Every burden we have to carry has already been laid on the shoulders of Immanuel—God with us. His way was much rougher and darker than mine Did Christ, my Lord, suffer, and shall I repine? “Begone, Unbelief,” John Newton (1779) Take courage! Royal feet have left a blood-red track on the road you walk, consecrating the painful path forever. - C.H. Spurgeon Morning and Evening
I know quite a few people, and if truth be told, it's probably everyone, that's going through rough times.
What struck me in what Spurgeon said today was towards the end of his devotional. "In any place we can go, He has been our forerunner."
We hurt because of something or someone, He's already been through that. His footsteps are there. Same with every aspect of life we can think of.
Scripture says we don't have a High Priest who cannot relate to us. He has. From physical birth to physical death. Jesus has been through all that we have...and yet did not sin.
We are always going to be told by His enemy the exact opposite. That we're on our own. That we can't count on Him. That if we want anything done we have to do it ourselves. That we are lost, we are hopeless. That we are so pathetic we should just end it all and get it over with.
He digs deeper. You earned that betrayal. You deserved to be harassed after what you did. Satan has more lies than the day is long.
If God, when we ask for forgiveness, casts our sins as far as the east is from the west, then Satan can come up with as many lies from the east to the west.
Jesus said he is a liar and the father of lies. He was a liar from the beginning.
So where does this leave us? For those in Christ, Jesus can relate to everyone in everything. He isn't just the antidote for Satan, He is King Jesus on the Throne of God. He has all rule and authority from His Father. Meaning Satan is powerless.
It's Jesus who encourages us in the worst of times. He tells us to be of good cheer He has overcome the world.
We fixate on the negative all too often. In doing so we miss the positive that He is doing.
Satan wants us to dismiss the positive. To focus on all that's still not right in our world rather than see what God has done.
Satan wants us to take matters into our own hands. Telling us that it's obvious God's not doing anything so you had better do something.
He fills the head of believers and unbelievers alike. The difference being the Believer has the power of the truth of God on their side.
Truth obliterates falsehoods.
Truth obliterates lies.
Truth is has a name. It's Jesus.
Look at how differently those who went through difficult times in the Bible would have turned out if the Lord hadn't done what He did and promised.
Daniel would have been no different than anybody else who went into exile. He never would have stood out if he didn't rely on his faith in God.
Jacob likely never would have survived very well had he not put his faith where his mouth was and prayed concerning his brother. God changed both.
David could have just dismissed his experience with the lion and the bear as his own success story and joined the rest of Israel in fear of Goliath.
Ruth could have kept silent but did not. It would have eventually caught up to her.
Joseph could have sunk in deep depression over the betrayal of his own family. Could have given up because life was now just too hard.
Those who cried out to Jesus for healing could have kept silent in their misery and died that way.
If grace and mercy didn't exist we would never know the power of God.
We may indeed be weak and weary from so much pain, suffering and seeing the deaths of family and friends. We may be buried in unexpected debt. Whatever we are facing, we have one who has really really been there before us.
Jesus.
He remembers and is there with you.
We must must must remember that if He is permitting something to happen in our lives there's a God appointed reason for it.
There is those same people that I mentioned above.
Joseph, he trusted in His God.
Jacob prayed, God changed him and Esau.
Ruth spoke up, stood on her faith, Jews were saved.
David stood firm in his Lord, Goliath went down.
The Scriptures entreat us to not give up. To not grow weary. Rely on the one we call our Savior.
It's only human to think that even death is the end of life. To God it's an answer to some prayers. We have great difficulty in dealing with the loss at times but God calls even death a cure for a disease.
Lean on the one who's already been on the road you are on. It's ok to just call on Jesus and cry. I have done it many times.
When there are no more words but only tears, trust me my dear reader, the message to Jesus is never lost.
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