In Our Shoes

"Though He is human, He is God. Though He is God, He is human."

WHEN JESUS heard the devil speak, after many days in the desert of Judea, He was not fooled. He knew His Father’s voice, so what was this speaking to Him? He had His Father’s wisdom speaking to Him, in the presence of the Holy Spirit. He knew this even at age twelve. So in one ear was Satan, and from His heart spoke God. This is the way it works for us, and we get it from Him. He wasn’t swayed by the devil’s bait, any false promise of power and authority that fallen angel had thought up. Jesus knew who He was, as the Son of God and the Christ, and He distinctly remembered Satan’s fall from heaven. He knew Satan was a thief and the father of lies. Not one word that old fox spoke was truth, not one word.

When the tempter said, “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread,” Jesus knew His time of fasting would come to an end, and He would eat again. That was the practical side. But He knew He was the bread of life. He knew He had come to earth to do the Father’s will, not His own. He would not give into His emotions and His body’s desires. When the devil said, “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone,” He recognized the Scripture and knew He was the Word of God who’d spoken it through man. He knew His death would come on the cross and that He would rise after three days. He knew the devil was defeated. (Matthew 4:1-11, for this story)

When the devil took Him up “into an exceeding high mountain, and [showed] him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them,” Jesus knew He was God come to earth and worship would be made to Him and to His Father only. He knew what the devil thought he had control of, he didn’t. The church has said the devil had the dominion, having stolen it from man, but there is no truth in that snake. His kingdom is one of lies and deceit, of chaos. He may have believed what he said, but what God had given to men could not simply be slipped from their grasp. Had Jesus given into the devil’s suggestion (which would never have happened), Jesus wouldn’t have had any more power or authority from it. The devil had no intent to give him anything.

[Luke 10:19, where Jesus gave man authority over the power of the enemy was spoken before Jesus’ death when no man was actually “saved,” in the knowledge of salvation that we have. Nor was the Holy Spirit, the dunamis (power) of God given to men to enable them fully as what would happen at Pentecost.]

The purpose of the temptation was to affirm to Jesus that there was no temptation common to man which He would not conquer because of the Spirit within Him and upon Him (1 Corinthians 10:13). I had the Savior speak to me early one morning in a gentle reminder. I had, like so many in the church have, made Him man, like us (and He is like us), but had forgotten He was always God. He has never NOT been God. The balance is scored in my thinking now. Though He is human, He is God. Though He is God, He is human. There are places in both sides of these statements where we have not given Him enough of one or the other. He did live a perfect life and never committed sin, but He faced evil knowing who He was as God. Who He is as God.

The devil is an opportunist. He saw a chance to deceive this man who was creating such a scene and took it. He said whatever he thought would work. It’s really that simple.

There are places of experience we cannot go as humans and walk precisely in another person’s shoes. There are experiences of suffering we cannot match, which happened to another and not to us. There are physical experiences, places visited in times and seasons which we will never see like those who were there. For those who survived the Holocaust, there is no walking in their shoes. For those who have fought the front lines of war, there is no walking in their shoes. Nor can one woman experience childbirth like another. Each mother’s experience is solely her own. What one man has seen of heaven and earth can only be compared to the Scripture and the anointing and “okay” of the Spirit. He knows men’s hearts and their intents and often, this is what is of value. It isn’t that what is spoken is right or wrong, but how did they mean it to be.

Which is more spiritual — the one who spoke sincerely and perhaps in some amount of error or the one who spoke in criticism, meant to put them in their place? Was the first or the last man in error? Ask the Spirit. Should we have criticized them? The Word of God says no. The apostle Paul did make corrections in the churches under his care, but he also said to never use a man’s weakness against them. If your eating meat or vegetables or gluten or bioengineered products causes another person to have doubts about themselves or causes another person to treat that person differently, then you are the one in error.

We treat too much of life like a sports game. We are constantly choosing sides. But God loves the North as well as the South and the Left as well as the Right. He loves both Great Britain and these United States. He loves Russia and the Ukraine. He is the God of Israel, but He blessed the descendants of Ishmael (Genesis 16:11). He loves both Jacob and Esau. I watched an Iranian Jew weep over his revelation of the Messiah as God and Healer. He recalled his parents having a lamb sacrificed for his healing when he was a boy, and he remembered being instantly healed. Years later, his son’s life hung in the balance, and there in front of him, he saw Isaiah 53 and the Lamb of God whose wounds promised life. The same God who had raised the daughter of a leader in the synagogue would do the same for him. Did do the same for him.<

Watch “This Iranian Jew begged Jesus to heal his son. "I can't keep quiet anymore." By One For Israel Ministry.

Who are we that He is mindful of us? Who are we that He would become one of us to lead us out of darkness and into His glorious light? There is simply too much of heaven and earth that we, as the pots He created, cannot hold, and we must in humbleness of mind and love for one another, for even our enemies, trust Him with it. We cannot think like each other, but Jesus can think like each one of us, and there are our hearts for men. Our heart should be a mirror image of His, who went so far as to die even for those who crucified them. And these are His words. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).” It is not just that He died for His friends and bid us to do so, but that He made us His friends when we did not deserve it.

“Compared to all this cosmic glory, why would you bother with puny, mortal man or be infatuated with Adam’s sons? Yet what honor you have given to men, created only a little lower than Elohim, crowned like kings and queens with glory and magnificence.” (Psalms 8:4-5 TPT)

Image by Jim Cooper from Pixabay


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com