Have you ever been shunned, bullied, or treated indifferently by some that don’t appreciate your worth? You didn’t do anything to those who mistreat you but, they just seem to hate you?
Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and rejected and forsaken by men, a Man of sorrows and pains, and acquainted with grief and sickness; and like One from Whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we did not appreciate His worth or have any esteem for Him.
If you have, you can relate some to the picture we are given here of what Jesus went through. Unlike Jesus though, our intentions are to just fit in, His--to love. He came to rescue us, to set us free from the imprisonment the enemy. Jesus came to love us, yet we rejected Him. Maybe you haven’t thought of the emotional pain Jesus endured, in doing His acts of love. We know He endured great physical pain, but He was also in a horrendous amount of emotional pain. Betrayed by His friends I am sure caused Him much pain and sorrow. Even though He knew He would be betrayed, and repulsed by many He suffered emotionally as well as physically. He was forsaken, instead of valued, even though He was our answer, our King, He desired only to love us, we renounced Him. He came to set us free, to love us, to show us the Father, yet, He was hated. He should have been glorified, yet He was despised. He came to free us from everything that is not good, yet we don’t recognize Him for it, but killed Him. He wasn’t treated as He should have been, as a King should be honored, He wasn’t esteemed, but detested by many.
God knew this would happen but still chose to suffer for the sake of His children. Jesus still offered to come and be the sacrifice for our sin, for the sake of the love the Father had for His children, even though He knew He would be rejected, mocked and killed, He came to represent LOVE..
God didn’t want us to suffer anymore so He came up with a plan to set us free, He sent His Son to suffer for us, so we wouldn’t have to suffer anymore. Think of it; think of the plan to love us and only to be thrown away as worthless. But even worse to be beat, tormented, mocked, lied about, and degraded first.
All He did was for us and even though we scourged Him, we were forgiven. The love God has for us includes forgiveness. His love is forgiveness and that forgiveness even though we hated--has brought forth healing.
Luke 23:34 And Jesus prayed, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And they divided His garments and distributed them by casting lots for them.
What passion, what love can this compare to? None, Who doesn’t retaliate, only One who has a passion to show us LOVE, the true meaning of LOVE.
Isaiah 53:4 Surely He has borne our grief’s (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses) and carried our sorrows and pains [of punishment], yet we [ignorantly] considered Him stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God [as if with leprosy]. 5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole.
All that has been done for us, all that suffering, and we still suffer today as if nothing happened that day, as if no atonement was made. We haven’t learned love, we still cause each other pain, we still suffer with pain, we still live imprisoned with sickness, we worry, and we are without peace as if Jesus never came to make that declaration of Love.
We celebrate the memories of that day by going to church, we go through some of the motions, but do we really live in the place He has suffered so much to give us? Maybe some, but not nearly enough.
Isaiah 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has made to light upon Him the guilt and iniquity of us all.
Even though Jesus came and gave us His life, He was beaten, spit at, mocked, tortured, and so much more, and we ignore it by going our own way. Even though He carried the sin of the world, even though He never sinned He took upon our iniquity. He knew we would deny Him, He knew Peter would get scared and deny Him, He knew Judas would betray Him, He knew all that would happen before it did, but still He chose to come, for the sake of the Kingdom of Love, He came to love us, to show us the Father. The Fathers law is love and that is the message God came to give to us that day and wants to remind us of today.
I feel in my heart He would say to all of us today;
I love you so much that I died for you. I gave you My Son and still you didn’t recognize Me, I let Him die for you even though, you don’t see My suffering. I still love you and I live to perpetually get that message to you. By continuing to love you no matter what.
So how can we live the message instead of go through the motions? I feel God saying today, take Him seriously. Don’t just look at Friday and remember, and Sunday and rejoice verbally, but live the life. Be the disciple we were meant to be, by literally living the life Jesus died to give us--live free.
Get healed instead of rely on the doctor; rely on Him, those stripes--His blood that was shed. Press in and prove that Jesus took 39 stripes for your healing. Use your faith, really believe instead going away with just a memory of His suffering, live out what was suffered. If we don’t, we live like He never took those stripes, like He never suffered for us, and then are we not saying it was just some big show, entertainment--for the enemy?
Don’t worry, only believe, press in and trust Him, rather than let the enemy harass you with fear of this or that. Resist the enemy and accept what Jesus did for you. Know by getting to know Jesus, that He loves you, and would never let you down.
He was alone then, is He still alone now? On that day and through His whole ministry did anyone really know or understand what He was up against, what He was going through, what He was trying to portray? He tried to explain it to the disciples but they didn’t get it, they all deserted Him at the last minute. And still today we do the same thing, we don’t press in and prove His will is good and perfect--and by not doing so, we don‘t prove the LOVE of the Father. We would rather take an aspirin for a headache then to believe and press in that by His stripes we were healed. We don’t lay hands on the sick in fear nothing will happen, we don’t tell in fear of rejection. We fear being despised--so we blend in.