We invite you to encounter more of Christ by reflecting on his marvelous names in Scripture. This page features daily selections from the book, I Want to Know More of Christ, by Steve Hall. As you listen to the audio or read the text versions (which are updated every day) may you become increasingly captivated by the fullness of Christ! You can also receive a free daily email reminder to visit this page by signing up below.
Jesus is…
A Man of Suffering
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SCRIPTURE READING:
Isaiah 53:1-4, 12
Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
SIGNIFICANCE:
The LORD JESUS CHRIST endured incredible suffering so that God might offer all mankind the gift of eternal life.
Dear Father, I am very grateful that the exalted Son of God left His heavenly glory to become the Man of Suffering (Sorrows). I think of what Henry Gariepy says in “The 100 Portraits of Christ,” that Christ is: “The Prince of martyrs, the Lord of anguish, the King of suffering.” My heart aches that the Lord Jesus willingly “had no beauty or majesty . . . was despised and rejected by men . . . was familiar with suffering . . . took up our infirmities . . . carried our sorrows”; and was even “stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.” Oh, the unimaginable suffering and sorrows that He unjustly endured! I love Him so much for the precious spirit in which He bore those sorrows for us. I pray that You will help me to join the Apostle Paul in his response to Christ’s suffering in Philippians 3:10-11, “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” Please help me to be a clear witness of Him in whatever sufferings I have. I pray these things in the victorious name of the Man of Sufferings. Amen.
