Jesus Makes Us More

 

Toni M. Babcock

Many people struggle with an affliction in life — some ‘thorn in the flesh’ which may have been present since childhood, be it physical, mental, racial, or economic; something that causes them to feel ostracized, misunderstood, rejected, despised, or 'less than’. 

Thank God we have someone in heaven who identifies with our pain, because He’s experienced all this and more. 

His name is Jesus.

The prophet Isaiah said “…He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. 

Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. 

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:2b-6 NIV)

Amazing how the prophet Isaiah foretold the suffering of our Lord seven hundred years before Jesus even came! 

Even more amazing, when we lay the burden of our sin and the weight of our afflictions at His feet, He carries our heart to a place of sweet victory in Him – and makes us more.

Toni is the author of Reflections from the Heart, in Light of the Gospel of Jesus and The Stone Writer, Christian Fiction for Young Readers and Teens. Contact