He experienced life like ours so we can experience life like His …

For most of His time while on Earth, the life of Jesus was much like yours and mine.

He was born into this world as a baby, just like all the rest of us.

He grew into a child who had to learn everything about life, just like the rest of us.

And for more than a decade, He worked very hard at the craft He learned from his step-father Joseph, that of being what is referred to in the Greek language as a “tekton.” We usually refer to that term as a carpenter, but it could be interpreted as artisan or contractor. Jesus likely worked with stone as much (or more) as He did with wood. Either way, He was a blue-collar independent contractor living in a rough little town that had no other distinguishing characteristic than being a rough little town.

That was the bulk of His human life, and it was a lot like ours!

It is encouraging for us to know our Maker and Savior knows exactly what it’s like to experience being human in this world He created, and to understand from first-hand experience the challenges of being human.

He gets it, from personal experience!

But there’s something more important than the fact that Jesus lived most of His human life like we live today. What’s more important is that we surrender our lives to Him so that we can live our lives like He did His in one primary way that surpasses our experience:

“So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most,” Hebrews 4:14-16.

It was those last few years of His earthly life that Jesus devoted Himself to accomplishing what was necessary to make it possible for us to live as humans like Him, without sin.

“Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God — truly righteous and holy,” Ephesians 4:21-24.

Jesus knows our experience, and His greatest desire is that we know His — a human life free of sin that is lived in communion with God.

Because of Christ, have you put off the old sinful nature and former way of life for a new nature of righteousness and holiness?

Scotty