To Be Like Jesus!

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

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.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:3-6

Jesus had a hard life here on this earth. Isaiah 53 clearly states some things about the life of Jesus that are usually ignored.

Jesus was not “good looking.” Have you ever seen an ugly baby? They say there is no such thing, but Jesus had “no beauty that we should desire Him.” Have you noticed that portrayals of Jesus in dramatic presentations always cast Him as a handsome man? He is never played by someone who is “beauty challenged.” Yet the Bible clearly describes Jesus as unattractive.

Jesus was despised by men and He was a “man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Grief is a very difficult thing to deal with in life. It means you have lost something very precious to your very existence. The Bible does not say what Jesus lost that caused him to know the intimacy of grief. Grief touches every thread in your cloth. It wakes you in the morning and puts you to bed at night. While others laugh you hurt “like Hell!” Grief is not a repairable circumstance. When grief arrives it stays until you learn to live with it. Grief is not for things you can “get over.”

And then, Jesus was wounded for my transgressions. None of the suffering in the life of Jesus was because He had done something wrong. Jesus never sinned and yet he suffered the penalty for every sin that has ever or will ever be committed. The justifiable pain of every life on earth was heaped on Jesus. For my mind that is impossible to grasp, but with God all things are possible.

And so I pray with great fear and trembling, “Lord let me be like Jesus. Let me live as Jesus did. Let me be used by You like Jesus was used as He walked among men and blessed them with Your Word and healing power.”

Come quickly, Lord Jesus!