Identified With Christ

Men esteem those who are like them, or like they wish they could be (Jn. 5:44; Psm. 49:18). God esteems those who fear him and have total reverence for the truth and reality of what he is all about (Isa. 66:1,2). Men exalt the proud and ‘accomplished’ among them, but God resists those who are such, and keeps his distance from them; choosing rather to exalt those who are lowly and who abase themselves before him (Lk. 18:10-14; Jas. 4:6; Psm. 138:6). The Bible tells us that God does not think like men, nor does he see people the same way men see each other (Isa. 55:8,9; I Sam. 16:6,7; Lk. 21:1-4). Most people, if given the choice to be in the company of, or be friends with anyone they could choose; would want to be friends with someone that men honor or admire, or someone people find attractive for whatever reason. But God is attracted to those who find his holiness and truth beautiful, honorable, and worthy of all admiration. He also is attracted to those who are cast down, hurt, and broken (Psm. 34:18; Isa. 57:15). Those whom God considers to be successful and accomplished are those who have devoted everything to him, and are willing to be cast aside and left out by almost everyone, including those who are in the household of God (There are too many scriptures to list that show that it has always been God’s people who have rejected, dishonored, and even killed those who have in reality walked with God in holiness and truth).

What about you friend? Who would you like to be around if given the opportunity? The apostle Paul spoke of some who were very attractive to God, saying “They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth" (Heb. 11:37,38). I don’t believe that there were many people at all who thought that those spoken of in that passage were attractive or desirable to hang out with. The holy Ghost, speaking in prophecy of Christ, said "I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children. For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me… and I was the song of the drunkards" (Psm. 69:8-12). Are you, or do you truly care to be identified with Jesus, and with those who have identified with God through the years? For the scripture clearly tells us, in regard to Jesus: ”… he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not" (Isa. 53:2,3). So once again I ask, who do you consider to be accomplished, successful, and attractive to be with? And in God’s eyes, is it someone “of whom the world is not worthy?” I think that about says it.