Jesus Understands

 

Over the years as a pastor many people came to me and shared some very difficult things. Some of those things I could identify with and others I could not. I was very careful not to say to those people who were going through things that I could not identify with that I knew how they were feeling. I didn’t say that because it was not true. I had compassion for their hurt but I did not have the slightest idea what they were feeling. One of the most awesome things about Jesus is that He can identify with everything in our lives.

 

Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Jesus went through every struggle and faced every temptation that we do. He understands our weaknesses, He experienced every struggle, and He was tempted with every sin that we have been tempted with and yet He did not sin. So, when we struggle with our weaknesses and our temptations, He understands our struggles and our feelings because He had them too. But, because He overcame them, He can give us the power through Himself to overcome them.    

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about knowing that Jesus faced every struggle and every temptation that we do and He overcame them all and did not sin and gives us the power through Him to overcome our struggles and temptations.

 

Hebrews 2:18 says, “For because He Himself has suffered when tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.” Jesus did not just breeze through His temptations. When He faced temptations, they were hard and painful to Him. We face temptations and we struggle with giving in to them or trusting God and turning to Him. They cause us suffering. Jesus, because He experienced that also, understands what we are going through and can help us. It is comforting and enabling to know that, as we face temptations and struggle with them, Jesus knows the suffering we are experiencing and is there with us to help us.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about knowing that as Jesus faced temptations, He suffered as He overcame them and is with us and gives us the power to not allow the temptations to lead to sin.

 

Hebrews 2:10 says, “For it is fitting that He, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.” The word perfect here means to be complete. Jesus was perfect from His birth through His death and resurrection, so He needed nothing else to be perfect. He was sinless and never did anything that was not according to the Father’s will. Jesus understands our weaknesses, He was human and identifies with our temptations because He was also tempted. But Jesus had never sinned. He could not identify with our sin until the cross. Jesus became our sin on the cross. He became guilty of every sin that every person who had ever lived and those who would live would commit.  2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us that God the Father made Jesus who had never sinned to be guilty our sin so that we could become the righteousness of God. Jesus became complete because now He had experienced the penalty of sin, separation from the Father, and He now knew from a human perspective what sin was.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about Jesus suffering and dying on the cross for our sin so that we could become the righteousness of God and receive salvation.

 

With Jesus Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                      Joe