(Hebrews 4:15) Jesus is able to identify with our human weaknesses.

Because God is transcendent, holy, and perfect, we often think God is totally detached from our human feelings, struggles, and pain.

We think he could never understand the difficulty we experience in our fallible condition.

However, as Hebrews 4:15 says, when God became FULLY HUMAN in Jesus Christ (the incarnation), he completely experienced our human weaknesses through his many earthly temptations, but without sinning.

He experienced insults, rejection, loneliness, and death—even crucifixion on a Roman cross.

This is an amazing truth concerning Christianity; it is totally unique among all religions. Instead of requiring us to save ourselves by somehow finding God, Jesus Christ descended from heaven into our human fallenness, our rebellion, and the world’s filthy muck to save us.

This is what the love of God is.

As fully human, Jesus Christ lived a perfect life in obedience to God. Jesus lived the life before God that we could never live. He did not just save us by dying on the cross, but he also saved us by living a perfect life IN OUR PLACE.

When we fully internalize this truth, we stop our striving to be approved by God. When we fully internalize this truth, we enter a spiritual rest from our own efforts.

Next time you feel rather hopeless because of your struggles in life, remind yourself that Jesus not only experienced the same pain during his earthly life, but he also continues to enter our weaknesses and suffering with us.

Because of this, our hope and faith are in the perfect human life that Jesus lived IN OUR PLACE.

What an amazing truth!