Accept the Help
“We don’t have a Priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to Him and get what He is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.”
Hebrews 4:14-16, The Message
Jesus was tempted as we are, yet did not sin. Let me say that again: Jesus faced all manner of temptations, like you and I do, yet He did not sin. How much time have you spent digging into the implications of this? Jesus actually empathizes with where you are—He suffers with you—in your weaknesses; in the impulses you have to be mean, hateful, gossipy, angry, self centered, lazy, apathetic, domineering or over indulgent, and so on. Jesus has been there. Yes, Jesus did not fall foul to those temptations; He was fully obedient to the Father, even when directly tempted by the devil himself. Yet, our human frailty is not alien to Him. Jesus is not shocked by our sin!
Where do you go when temptation comes knocking, when these weaknesses get exposed and we feel tested beyond breaking? Do you hold it in and hope you can resist like a barricade against a storm? Do you let it crash over you, feeling helpless that anything could ever change?
Hebrews says, “Take the mercy, accept the help.”
In Jesus, we have one who understands our broken humanity, who invites us to open up to Him. He invites us every day to let Him in, to heal that which is broken, forgive that which is sinful and reorder our chaotic hearts, disordered minds and out-of-whack lives.
I’ve been reminded recently just how toxic isolation is. I don’t mean the isolation of the pandemic, though I suppose that also applies. I mean our impulse to withdraw when the going gets tough and when our sin “grows horns.” How many of us harden our hearts and lock in to a state of defensiveness and self-protection? Yet, when we take the mercy and accept the help offered to us in Jesus, it always has a horizontal dimension and a vertical one. To let God in, we need to let people in too, for you are not alone. Jesus gets it. There are people around you who get it too. Help is there. Will you take it?
