Look at Jesus

Look at Jesus

By Truly






When looking at your love for God, what did you discover? Was it a slow beginning or a fast start when faced with the question: Why do I love God? It does not really matter how you found your answers. It does matter that you did find answers. Did you spend enough time searching for you own personal answers? Did you try to use your heart in answering the question. I hope you had time to invest in this last week. If not, try to use this week to answer: “Why do I love God?”

I have good news. This week God is going to help us further investigate our love for Him. We are going to look at Jesus to see our love for God. Our hearts are going to be engaged with love. We will begin to see clearly our love for God when we look at Jesus. This is going to take you somewhere new. And it will all lead to helping us grow our trust in God so that Proverbs 3:5,6 take real meaning in our lives. Ready?

We will start with Isaiah 53:3. In the Old Testament Isaiah prophecies of Jesus and his coming for future generations. Isaiah describes the Messiah, Jesus like this:

Isaiah 53:3
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

He was despised
This word “despise” in the Hebrew translation means “to treat someone or something as totally insignificant or worthless.” In this particular verse “despised” leads to hatred. Jesus was treated like something that has no worth. He was treated as if he had no significance at all. He was looked at by his many enemies as totally insignificant and hated.

Rejected by men
This verse also tells us that Jesus was “rejected by men.” Translations of “reject” in Hebrew include refuse and cast off. Jesus was rejected my men. He was hated, treated as worthless and cast off. This rejection is beyond anything we have ever experienced. We are talking about men, huge numbers, masses rejected him. They despised him to a point of hatred. They rejected him, refused him as worthwhile. Take a small does of what we consider rejection and multiply it to the majority of the people. Huge amounts of people rejected Jesus. We don't even know what rejection feels like based on one or two people rejecting us. I doubt your rejection from someone was so very strong that they actually found you totally insignificant and despised you to a point of hatred. When I think of Jesus' rejection, it makes my past rejection seem ridiculously small. We can't even imagine the pain it could cause to be hated and rejected by so many. In fact we don't want to imagine it or go to such a place in our minds.

Isaiah 53:3 goes on to say that Jesus was:
a man of sorrows
“Sorrow” in this Hebrew translation means torment, physical suffering as well as mental anguish. He was a man of torment, having both physical and mental suffering.

It continues to say he was
familiar with suffering
He was familiar with affliction, harm, and trauma. Jesus was familiar with suffering. It was not out of the ordinary or unusual to him to suffer. He knew suffering. He knew it well.

So Isaiah 53:3 says:
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.

Jesus was despised, treated as totally insignificant. He was hated and rejected, cast off by men. He was a man of sorrows, of torment both physically and mentally. He was familiar with suffering. It was common for him to suffer, not unusual.

Isaiah 53:3 continues to say that Jesus was:
Like one from whom men hide their faces
Men would hide their faces from him. They would not even acknowledge his presence. They despised him that much, that they would hide their face from him. How would you like to go out and people despised you so much they would hide their face to not see you? To be hated and rejected to a point that people literally did not want to have their face near you is beyond our imagination.

Then Isaiah 53:3 states that
he was despised, and we esteemed him not
Mankind esteemed him not. Men did not respect him at all. The Son of God Almighty received no respect from so many, many people.

Now go to Isaiah 52:14 and read what these men did to the Son of God, the Messiah.

Isaiah 52:14
Just as there were many who were appalled at him—
his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man
and his form marred beyond human likeness—

This passage describes Jesus at the cross.
many were appalled at him
This means they were horrified at him. It was a horrific, shocking thing to see. Why? Isaiah 52:14 tells us why.

his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man
Jesus was disfigured beyond that of any man. Jesus was so brutally, horrifically beat and tortured that he was disfigured more than any man.

It says that
his form marred beyond human likeness—
Jesus, his form was marred, injured, destroyed beyond human likeness. He was disfigured so horrifically that his form did not even look like a human. Did you see “The Passion of the Christ” the movie by Mel Gibson? Some people thought it was extremely graphic. It may have been more graphic than we tend to see at the movies, but it was not realistic. Imagine Jesus, his human body was “marred beyond human likeness.” That is why many were horrified and shocked at him. This description and portion of our study is not meant to disturb you or haunt you. It will bring us to a place of better understanding of Christ. It may not be pleasant to think of these things, but do you want to see Jesus and what he did for you? Of course you do because you love him. Hold on.

Jesus suffered greatly! Why? Because of love. He suffered for love. God came to earth in the form of man called Jesus because of his love for us.

Read Isaiah 53:5
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

Jesus was pierced, wounded for our transgressions. Transgressions refers to our sins, our trespasses. He was crushed for our iniquities. Our iniquities are our sins against God. Jesus was wounded and crushed to the point of no longer having human likeness – for our sins.

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him

Jesus received the punishment that brought us peace. That was our punishment. The punishment was ours, mankind. Man had turned away from God, their Creator, their Father. Man had disobeyed God over and over and over again. Man disobeyed all of God's commandments. Man turned their back on God, showed Him no respect as our Creator. Man did not love Him in return. The punishment deserved was for man, not the sinless one, our Saviour. Jesus deserved no punishment. He was faithful and sinless. 1 Peter 2:22 says that "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." We were sinners and disobedient. We deserved the punishment. We needed to be disciplined, not Jesus.

But
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, Jesus.

This week meditate on this small portion of Isaiah 53:5. Meditate on these 9 words only and renew your love for Jesus, thus for God. Renew your love for Jesus this week by remembering what He did for us. It was our punishment he took. This lesson is meant to bring to the surface that sincere, longing love you have for Jesus. What Jesus did for you is what God did for you. We are opening up our love for God maybe slowly, but surely, so that our trust in Him may grow.

Stick with facing your love for God. This week write down these 9 words to learn them and meditate on them to reveal your love for Jesus. Let God show you the love that lives inside of you.

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him