As we returned to our study entitled, Ultimate Faith Challenge, we discussed Identifying with the Humanity of Jesus. God has bestowed His grace on us by taking on our suffering. Romans 1:5 states that we receive God's grace only through Jesus Christ. God came to earth as a man and was mocked, beaten and crucified in human form so that we could relate better with our creator. But, the incarnation is about more than a moment in history when God became man. It is also about the daily call for men and women to become like Christ by humbling ourselves and laying down our lives to serve a spouse, a child, a grandchild, a parent, and a world that desperately needs to see Jesus "in flesh and blood."
I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the cross. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I turn to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness.
That is the God for me. He set aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death.
John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ
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