Long before His crucifixion, Jesus Christ endured countless indignities on Earth.

In the Old Testament, we read how God kept reaching down to His people. “The Lord…sent word to them through his messengers again and again.… But they mocked God’s messengers” (2 Chronicles 36:15–16, NIV).

Finally God sent His Son to Earth. He came in humiliation; many imagined He was conceived out of wedlock, a shameful thing in that era. He grew up in a town of ill repute: “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” (John 1:46, NIV). He worked as a humble carpenter, lived in relative poverty, and endured many indignities as He spent three years in ministry, teaching and healing and speaking the good news of God’s kingdom.

When I first read this story as an unbeliever—having been raised with no knowledge of God—part of what drew me to Christ is how the gospel accounts seem so contrary to typical human reasoning, yet I found them completely credible. No human would make up such a story! It had the ring of truth to me…and still does.

Does Christ’s redemptive work for you resonate in your heart and mind? How does it make you feel and think?

Perspectives from God’s Word

“He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2, NIV).

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:5–7).

Perspectives from God’s People

“There has never been a greater humiliation of a person than that of Jesus. No one has ever descended so low because no one has ever come from so high.” —Mark Jones

“Because we children of Adam want to become great, / He became small. / Because we will not stoop, / He humbled Himself. / Because we want to rule, / He came to serve.” —J. Oswald Sanders

This blog is excerpted from the new expanded edition of Randy’s book Seeing the Unseen. This 90-day devotional equips and inspires readers to live with a right view of eternity that can shape the way they think and live today. 

Photo by Greyson Joralemon on Unsplash