He Feels It

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
(Hebrews 4:15 – ESV)

For is a connecting word, he is giving an explanation – what He can do for us. Not only is Christ in a position to help you, He is willing and able to help you. We might know someone that could help us, but it doesn’t do any good if he won’t, or if we cannot get a hold of him. It is a tremendous blessing to us that we can get a hold of Christ, and He is willing to help us. The writer is telling us not only why we should but also why we can enter in and hold fast.

Jesus is sympathetic with our cause. We have many weaknesses, and we seem to be able to notice them more as we mature. We might be getting stronger but we see our true helplessness before many things. We aren’t the naïve young one any more, the invincible 18 year-old who hasn’t yet learned. We have had episodes that remind us of our overall condition.

We all need help, all the time, we are not God, we have weaknesses, and we have limitations. But we also have sin, and we know we don’t deserve help, especially the help of the one we so often sin against. So we feel like it is hopeless, we have needs, but we don’t deserve all the help we need. So we can try to deny it all and act like we don’t need any help, or try to drown it all and throw our life into a pool of pleasures, or we give way to the darkness of despair. But God has made provision to give us a living hope, our Great High Priest Jesus Christ.

The word for weaknesses is often used in the Gospels for physical illness. Here it means we have no strength, not physical strength but that we have no spiritual strength. Now we may indeed be increasing in spiritual strength as we mature, but we still have weaknesses, and we rely on Jesus more as we see them and repent of trying to do it through our own lack.

This is the Christian way; we are actually growing stronger in Him as we realize the weakness in ourselves. Then we receive the strength of Christ. We confess our weakness and repent of trying to do it our way, and then we walk that out as we place faith in Christ as our strength. In order for Christ to give us His strength we have to come to the place where we realize our weakness. We have to admit we are unable to resist, and we repent, and have faith that Jesus can and will operate. He shows us our weakness, and He gives us strength. What will it take for you to realize you can’t handle it? Apart from the grace of God you are without strength.

Now once you do realize your lack of strength you cannot do as those at Kadesh-barnea and simply stay away, go back, fail to enter in. Many have been exposed by the Word, but then they fail to take of hold of Christ and enter in because they think they have to do it in their own strength and they realize they don’t have enough. This is our dilemma with regard to sin in our lives. We have been exposed but we won’t enter into the operating room, we fail to trust God during hard times.

Jesus sympathizes with this, our weakness. This “sympathize” is not simply meaning that He is always sympathizing, like it is a general principal, “He knows how you feel”. It is not like He is only saying, “I’ve been there before, and man, and I know how you feel.” No this means He sympathizes with THAT, in other words not just with the fact that we are weak, but with the actual weaknesses themselves, the actual events. Jesus is not unable; He is able to sympathize with every event we go through. It is like He is saying, “I know how you feel right now, because I feel it right now.” Not just I’ve been where you’ve been, but also I am there with you now. He did not know sin but He does know how you feel. Right now.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©