Consider Him

In today’s reading in the One-Year Bible, we read passages in the Gospel of Matthew of Jesus’ crucifixion. It is tough to read what Jesus had to endure on the cross. How often have I read these verses regarding  Jesus being nailed to the cross? How often have I imagined the reality of what is described here? or can I even imagine? Can I imagine the brutality? The mockery?

Matthew 27:35 – “And they crucified him…”

Can I imagine that Jesus being nailed on a cross would mean that His hands and feet were first nailed to that cross? He was physically attached to those beams of wood with a sharp spike. A spike maybe 6 inches long, maybe longer. It was very sharp at the tip but it got wider as it got closer to the head of the spike. It was hammered – through His feet, through His hands. It was brutal. Can I imagine how unbearable that pain was? How much agony as limb by limb He bore it?

In our passage in Matthew, after they crucified Jesus, it continues  “And they crucified him and parted his garments, casting lots:” Can I imagine that the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice? Can I imagine that without my heart breaking? They played games after they killed my Savior?

We’re told from the Scriptures there were reasons that were religious and political for all of this to happen. But spiritually, there was one reason – US. He did it for you and for me.

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Tonight I was back in the Word studying for my Sunday School lesson in Hebrews 12. I came to verse 3. It says…

³For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. – Hebrews 12:3

The Amplified version says it this way

³Just consider and meditate on Him who endured from sinners such bitter hostility against Himself [consider it all in comparison to your trials], so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. – Hebrew 12:3

Friends, I was in a place this morning. I woke up feeling to just sit down or maybe to lay it all down. What was it? My vision. My passion. My desire to minister in all the ways God has called me. Ever been there? I not only found myself having grown weary – but I found myself on the way to losing heart.

There is so much I have wanted to do in my life and I have done lots of things but recently so little of what I speak of here. I wonder more often than not lately – will I be like so many of the Saints we’ve studied in Hebrews 11. Will I be one to never see the promises on this side of heaven? And while I guess I should be okay with knowing His promises will be fulfilled on this side or in heaven – honestly today I was not all that okay with it.

BUT, on days like today, God always, always has a Word for me and today was no exception.

³Just consider and meditate on Him who endured from sinners such bitter hostility against Himself [consider it all in comparison to your trials], so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. – Hebrews 12:3 AMP

So I considered Him. Considered all that Jesus endured so that I could have eternal life but also so I can have this day. Considered Him and all He went through in comparison to my own trials of this day. God had me consider and meditate. Why? So that I won’t give in to the schemes of the enemy – weariness and losing heart are not of God. They are of the enemy. I know that, but like so many, sometimes the vision gets cloudy. So, I considered Him and truly, there is no comparison.

I thank God for His Word. I thank Him for His faithfulness to meet me in His Word. I thank Him that He has a way of bringing me right back to His realities being my own.

Some ask why I am so adamant about reading the Bible through each year by reading every day. Why I am almost desperate for others to get in the Word and do so every single day in some way. These nuggets right here that I have passed over so often, that is why.

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²⁰My son, attend to my words; Incline thine ear unto my sayings. ²¹Let them not depart from thine eyes; Keep them in the midst of thine heart. ²² For they are life unto those that find them, And health to all their flesh. – Proverbs 4:20-22

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Have a blessed night.