Pastor Barry's  "Chapter & Verse"  Day 102

April 12;    Hebrews 2:18;    102/260(II);    ‘He Knows & Helps’

Hebrews 2:18 For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.

I believe that one of the reasons the Lord Jesus shed His deity while He ministered as a Man on the earth was exactly for the purpose this verse teaches.  His love for us was and is so strong that it was incredibly important to Him that He experience and know everything that we, His creation go through.  The Bible tells us that in heaven, now, the Lord Jesus is praying for us (Hebrews 7:25).  Having been through temptations that we go through, Jesus is better able to intercede for us, since He knows that resisting temptation is not easy and causes suffering.  Suffering in the sense that denying the flesh, when the temptation is strong, is not easy.  Hebrews 4:15 lets us know that Jesus was tempted in all ways, yet did not sin.  His kindness to women and children set Him apart from everyone else and must have endeared Him to them.  In the natural Jesus would have been perfectly justified for exploding on the religious leaders.  He had perfect control of His emotions.  In Gethsemane, when Jesus had to ‘crucify’ His mind, disciplining everything that made Him recoil at becoming sin and being separated from His Father, He did.  Because of these truths, what confidence it gives to us as believers when we go to the Father in prayer, in the Name of Jesus.  Our Lord having been through and suffered with temptation, goes to the Father and ‘pleads our case.’  Ancient gods, were taught to be set apart, aloof from the needs of humanity, indifferent to circumstances people faced.  How different the truth is.  Jesus Christ loves us, identifies with us and prays for us.  What a privilege we have to call Jesus Lord.