A Study in Isaiah 53 Griefs and Sorrows
He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
Jesus Our Savior has done so much for us. His Death, Burial and Resurrection offers much more than just a ticket out of Hell. I looked up the original meanings of a lot of the words in the above verses. Let me give you an extended version of what these verses are really saying. This is by no means a Paraphrase, just insights based on the original Hebrew Words.
Jesus was considered by others as worthless and vile. He was scorned by so many. He was rejected and considered lacking, not good enough. Yet He was a man who understood deeply our Physical and mental pain. He knows by experience, both external and internal sadness, affliction and sickness. The world hid their faces from Him. He was scorned and considered worthless by them. He was disregarded by the people, yes and instead, they plotted against Him with Malicious intent.
But in actuality, it was our own afflictions, sadness, and sickness that He Himself bore. He lifted them off of us. He carried them for us, both our physical and mental pain, yes, our griefs. And yet, Mankind considered Him to be punished by God, as if He were getting what he deserved at the Cross. We blamed Jesus and acted as if God Himself were beating Him, scourging Him, wounding Him.
Quite the picture, huh? Jesus chose to die for us, to lay down His life in our place, so that we could live. And mankind’s response was try to blame Jesus for His own death. Mankind acted like they were the righteous ones, and treated Jesus as the sinner. O, what a twisted world we live in. Jesus endured all that He did, purely out of love for us. His Precious suffering was endured so that we could be set free. What a marvelous and wonderful Savior, this Jesus of Ours.
I was severely injured by a woman whom I was mentoring. She told me I was Unstable and Needy. I was crushed and cried out in confusion. I shared with the leader of Women’s Ministry what had happened, and her response just blessed my soul and started the Healing Process or me. When I told her that this person said that they wouldn’t be mentored by me anymore because I was Unstable and Needy, she looked compassionately at me and said, “Well, aren’t we all?” I just cried and cried, because this woman in leadership had just set me free from that terrible assessment by taking it upon herself. She admitted to be unstable and needy herself. Yes, we are all Unstable and Needy, but Jesus loves us so very much, just as we are. He carried those rejections, those depressions, false accusations, misunderstandings, wrong opinions, etc. He lifted them all off of us and carried them Himself. None of us ever needs to stand under the opinion of another human being as long as we live, because Jesus took all that upon Himself at the Cross. He was Rejected for us.
Only God’s view of us matters; and we need not ever see ourselves through anyone else’s eyes. Only how God sees us, only what He says about us, that’s all we need to consider.
O Sweet, Holy, Magnificent Savior, how can we ever thank You for such a gift? Our thanks to You is found in one thing: Believing You. Believing what You have done for us, believing only what You say about us. We choose this day to let You give us Your view of ourselves, and forsaking all other views, we embrace it.
Amen and Amen!
hisshadowings.com 