(Day 10) Seeking God Through His Word, Prayer, and Fasting

Hebrews 2:14-18 & 4:12-16

At some point, we all need someone to talk to. It may be your spouse, parent, or some family member. You may have a close friend or mentor that you trust to hold your secrets as you unburden your heart to them. There are many that have disclosed deep, personal things with people that they thought they could trust, only to learn a painful lesson that they couldn't. When your secrets were shared with others, you were left with the stinging pain of betrayal. This experience has caused many to close up, and they have great difficulty trusting people.

We've heard the term confidant. A confidant is defined as a person with whom one shares a secret or personal information, trusting that they won't repeat it to others. When someone confides in you, they're demonstrating confidence in you. They have witnessed something in your character that gives them the belief that they can come to you and freely discuss the issues that are on their heart. It's a great blessing when God puts people in our lives that are true and trustworthy. You may need only one hand to count how many people you can rely on that will patiently allow you to unpack your problems with them as they try to help you sort them out. Maybe you only have one person that you can really talk to. For some, they've concluded that they have no one.

If only there was someone who could truly understand how you feel. We want to be heard and understood. What makes it easier to confide in someone is when that person can relate to your pain or problem. It's the relatability that makes you know that they can identify with your situation. It even cuts down on the need for a whole lot of explaining. You know that because they have had that same or similar experience, they already know how you feel. That's what makes the life of Christ so amazing for us to consider.

Normally, when we think of Christ, we think of His power, the miracles He performed, and the fact that He was God in the flesh. We may gloss over the fact that He was truly human. His experiences in the flesh were real. Jesus cried real tears, He felt real pain, and He bled real blood. He experienced human emotion, He felt the heat of the sun, and hunger and thirst in His body. Just note some of the ways that His experience on earth is described:

In the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared (Heb. 5:7).

Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour (St. John 4:6).

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not (Isaiah 53:3).

And He said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer (St. Luke 22:15).

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil (Heb. 2:14).

Our heavenly Father, knowing that we would need someone to understand when we're hurting, and could comfort us in our sorrows, and could relate to whatever we're going through, appointed His only begotten Son, to have a real, human experience. For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren (you and me), that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor (help) them that are tempted (Heb. 2:16-18).

The temptations and sufferings of Christ were far beyond anything that anyone has had to endure. He bore the sins of the world and the anguish of soul that brought. He can relate to your pain and your struggles. There is a Savior for us to confide in. The Lord Jesus Christ has welcomed us to come to Him, trusting that He can identify with what we are going through. His invitation to us says, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16).

From the heart and hand of Pastor Reginald Reaves