“…it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect (or complete) through suffering.” Hebrews 2:10
What an amazing and incredible truth—God became a man to suffer for us. We often think mostly of His suffering on the cross in our place, but, we need to be mindful that He also suffered in ways that we do on a daily basis. Think about this quote from Nancy Guthrie. “How could God fully identify and thus fully sympathize with us apart from becoming flesh and experiencing what our lives are like? The suffering of Jesus gave him that experience. It gave Jesus an unlimited capacity to sympathize with the troubles and temptations we experience in these bodies in this life.”
“No matter how much we suffer, we can never suffer beyond the ability of Jesus to sympathize with our suffering. We can never out-suffer Jesus. He knows and understands the hurts of living and dying in this world from his own personal, painful experience.” Quoted from Hoping for Something Better
What great encouragement the remembering of Jesus’ suffering should bring to our lives in times of difficulty. We should never feel that no one understands the misery we are in because Jesus absolutely does know exactly the degree of pain we are experiencing and He will give us aid as He now acts as our High Priest before God the Father. Glory!!
What a great time of discussion waits for us Thursday morning as we gather to dig into this amazing part of Scripture in Hebrews 2. Be sure to read from page 29 to the end of the chapter after you answer questions 7-13 on pages 187 and 188.