I have lived most of my life with a deep misunderstanding about my relationship to Jesus Christ. Until very recently, I thought of God as an angry taskmaster, the keeper of a list of all my wrongs and shortcomings, and a strict father, eager to punish. Only in the last few years have I grasped the fact that Christ came not to judge, but to rescue us.
Have you ever been scolded by a boss, or a parent, or a spouse, only to think, “They wouldn’t yell at me if they knew what I was going through.” Christ gave up His home in heaven, was born as a baby, and lived His life fully as an average man, but with the faith of a perfect God. He came to earth to know you, to love you, to sympathize with you, to laugh with you, and to cry with you. He came to save you from sin and death, and from yourself, but He didn’t come to judge you. He knows what you are going through.
Christ was that perfect man. He was the very image that God had created in the beginning, man without sin, the second Adam. At the same time, he was just like you and I, tempted in every way. He hungered. He tired. He angered. He loved. He feared. He endured every temptation you could ever face or will ever face. Temptation is not sin. Acting on temptation is a sin, or even indulging in temptation in your heart is sin. He didn’t sin.
That Jesus was just like you and me is difficult to imagine. It is, however, true. Isaiah tells us He even looked like you and I, an ordinary Joe.
“For He shall grow up before Him [His Father] as a tender plant,
And as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness;
And when we see Him,
There is no beauty that we should desire Him.”
– Isaiah 53:2
Fear Not, for that ordinary Joe knows you, for He is human in every way. He is also a God in every way. Sinless. Perfect. He came to forgive, not to judge.
Fear Not, for serve a God who knows you and loves you.
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