Looking for lovely- Last week ??

Our last week with this study is looking at Jesus. His humanness. “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character hope” Romans 5:3-4 Is it ever hard for y’all to picture Jesus as human? Like you hear people say “sweet baby Jesus” but that’s an actually reality. When I think of Jesus, I picture our stained glass windows with a bearded man wearing a crown of thorns… not a toddling toddler having to learn life as we did, only doing it perfectly. In His humanness, Jesus knew suffering. Obviously on the cross, but so many times before that. Isaiah 53 verse three tells us he was despised, rejected.. a man familiar with pain and suffering. Does that not just break your heart? Blatant miracles were performed and people stilled denied His existence. Like how is that even possible? I cannot even wrap my mind around it. Now that I’m saved in the real way, I’ve studied very in depth the death of Jesus and the days leading up to the new covenant… now I cannot read about it, study it, without crying.. like not just a few tears but just desperate sobs over His time spent in the garden of Gethsemane before His capture, feeling the weight of what was coming- asking God for another way please… knowing there wasn’t one. One of His chosen, one of His twelve, turning Him over to His executors with a kiss. A KISS. And you thought that junior high three way call was backstabbing… His very best friend, in the darkest days of His life, denied Him over and over.. not only did He suffer, but alone. Jesus knew suffering. One of my most favorite parts of The Crucifixion, other than the obvious, is in Luke 23 verses 39-43. Jesus had been brutally beaten, ridiculed, received insult after insult, was spat on, was so debilitatingly broken that He had to be carried the remaining steps to His death… and hanging on that cross.. He still saved a life. He saved one of those mans soul minutes before He saved all of ours. That is my God. My tears speak for my heart every time I read about his death. Tetelestai He said. It is finished, paid in full. So much sadness and so much joy in that truth. I’ve never know what it was like to be both so sorry and so thankful. At the beginning of Jesus ministery, Jesus was led into the desert- without food for 40 days and was tempted by the devil. Weak. Hungry. Without. And the devil offered Him food… how many times have you been in a weak place in your life and the devil offer you a solution? How many times have you taken it? How many times did it help? Time after time after time I have let the devil patch the holes of my heart only for the stitches to break loose leaving an even bigger hole with significantly worse damage. I didn’t learn and I didn’t stop. I kept running away from my problems.. into bigger problems. Finally and unfortunately, it took so much hurt, so many failed patches- that I had backed myself into a corner that left me without a place to run… I was finished with patches, it was time for a perfector. “Man shall not live on bread alone” Luke 4:4 You can’t fix it, not alone. Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit, led by the Holy Spirit, and when weak, hungry, and in need- He resisted with the Holy Spirit. Not by bread alone. Perservence in the trials, not by bread, but by the words of the Lord.

Persevere.. because even when it feels bad.. know it’s not, because HE’S not. He’s hope, the last piece of the puzzle. Only through Him do we have eternity, Jesus is the only one that can save us from ourselves. It’s through His resurrection that we have hope for a future that doesn’t end like we deserve. “And hope does not put us to shame, because Gods love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Romans 5:5 “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” Hebrews 6:19 Hope, not to put us to shame, but to hold us in place. Anchoring our souls, rooting our hearts in the truths of Gods kingdom leaves us unshaken, unmoved, unharmed. When you feel like you’re lost and wave after crashing wave continues to crash over you, like the tide could carry you off into an ocean of fear or disappointment, remember that it’s Jesus that holds you; protects you, and keeps you unharmed. We will suffer. Know that a saved heart does not equal a heart free of trouble. You will have trials, storms, darkness, temptation… but persevere, endure it. Your pain is not purposeless. God is using your circumstances to grow you. It’s been said that when you feel like you’re being burried- you’re really being planted. So grow, respond with a gentle spirit, rejoicing in what’s hard because you know it’s growing what’s good. Then have hope. Let Him show you over and over that all of this around you, it doesn’t matter. You are set apart, different, not following the crowd- the crowd is temporary- and you belong to God and He is bigger than the rumors, than people, than your finances, than your uncertainty, than that scale- He is bigger.. He is best. It doesn’t matter where you’ve been or where you are right now. Surrender to what’s free, what’s yours and let Him hold you while it hurts- if all you have to give is a broken spirit- that is all he wants.. just a little bit, a little seed of faith that He can turn it all around for you.. and when you give Him what you’ve got- just that pinch of faith- He will work with you for you. Psalm 51 I love y’all, Katie