Today
this hit home for me with another awareness that, whenever God shows me
deficiencies in my life, my first inclination is to just get about doing
something about it. I grew up learning that if something was wrong, things
would go better for me if I fixed it. I have had countless negative examples of
people abandoning me because I wasn’t able to fix something “enough”. Together
these messages taught me to respond to problems by trying harder, doing more, giving
it another shot, and whatever other hopeless descriptions could be added to the
mix.
God’s
way is different. Yes, he does show me things about myself that are in dire
need of improvement. However, he doesn’t expose these things with the law-based
hopelessness of me trying to do something good enough to please a God who is
infinitely holy. He exposes these things so I will feel my need of him and cry
out for the help he longs to give me.
Put
another way, God shows me my neediness in order to fling me into the realm of his
loving mercy and grace, to bring me both humbly and courageously before the throne
of grace and mercy, so that I can receive the grace and mercy I need at this
time, in whatever I am going through.
His
word states it like this: “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. Let us then
with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and
find grace to help in time of need.”[1]
God clearly wants me to see Jesus as someone who
sympathizes with my weakness (the double-negative makes for a strong positive
statement). When his Spirit exposes some weakness in me, some sin, iniquity,
flaw, failure, mistake or any other synonymic expression, the picture is still
the same: that Jesus is able to sympathize with me in those experiences because
he knows what it was like to be tempted “as
we are”.
However, because Jesus never sinned in his temptations, he
gives me two things. The first is that he is able to sympathize with me instead
of judge me. But the other is that he is the perfect high priest I can come to
because of the fact he did not sin in his temptations. If Jesus had sinned, I
would have his sympathy, but without a Savior. Because he was tempted, but
without sin, I have both his sympathy, and a Savior to help me.
So, when I see God’s Spirit showing me something in need of
improvement, he doesn’t want me trying harder to fix it. He wants me drawing
near with confidence to the very throne of grace that will give me the mercy
and grace “to help in time of need.”
This morning was a time of need; Jesus sympathized; I came;
he met my need. Now, on with my day to find out why he got me started on that
foot!
From my heart,
Monte
© 2013 Monte Vigh ~
Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise
noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible,
English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
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