Jesus Identifying with you!

As we are in Holy Week I was struck again by the reality that Christ completely identified with us in what we would experience in life.  Hebrews 4:15 says it this way, "For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin."  Isaiah 53:4 says, "He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face he was despised, and we did not esteem Him."  I had an experience where the Enemy brought up a fear of death that had it's roots in my father's suicide when I was 6.  As I experienced this very real fear of death, which has haunted me since I was 6 years old the Lord began to reveal something I hadn't fully seen before.  That in order for Jesus to save me, He had to enter into my reality, my pain, my sin, my brokenness as me to then save me out of it.  So He faced death in my place (as Hebrews 2:14 & 15 says) and entered into the losses you and I have experienced.  I had a client who was going through the pain of his family betraying him, yet he was trying to fight the pain and betrayal in his own strength.  I shared with him how Jesus entered into his betrayal when He was betrayed by Judas.  That if he would share in Christ's sufferings (receiving them) then he would share in Christ's glory.  I believe to be alone in your pain, suffering, and torment is like Hell on earth, God does not always instantly remove our suffering but He overcame it's power by entering our suffering with us.  As we look to Good Friday and reflect over the reality of all that He went through on the cross, don't sugar-coat it or white wash the reality of the awful suffering Jesus went through in order to complete the salvation work on our behalf.  As the Enemy also worked to bring up an old fear of rejection that has it's roots in my dad's suicide and perceived rejection of me, the Lord began to challenge me to receive the rejection of my father.  This is contrary to everything in our culture where we are on the constant search to avoid pain, maximize pleasure, and do it cheaply.  The challenge of the Lord was not to writhe in the pain of rejection by myself but share in His sufferings to then share in His glory.  The Holy Spirit directed me to the place in the gospels where Jesus cries out, My God, my God why have You forsaken Me? (Matthew 27:46).  Realizing that Jesus was not experiencing separation from the Father for anything He had done but for my sake because He knew I would be rejected by my father.  Jesus came and experienced the deep pain of being rejected by a father in all the torturing reality of humanity.  Jesus did not as God say that He knew about my pain, no He (God) entered into my suffering in order to save me through it.  When people say, "No one understands what I am going through" they are saying this through deception that veils the sufferings of Christ.  We have religiously created a Jesus that is neat and together and seems to float through the reality of the cross, I am thankful to Mel Gibson and "The Passion of the Christ" for revealing more of the reality of the severity and brutality of the Cross.  In order to be an acceptable High Priest for us He must enter into the fullness of Fallen humanity, becoming as one of us to save us fully from the sin-scared world. 

In Christ who identified completely with me,
Bret