"Manhandled"

"They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." (Psalms 69:21) Some mornings and easy and some are hard; this morning is a little bit of both. I have another red star beside this verse in my Bible. Not only that, but in the footnotes, there is reference to this verse in all four of the Gospels. The connection between the title's meaning and what this represents is three-sided; it speaks of the form Jesus was in, the way that He was treated, and the job He got done. First off, He was a man like you and I; in the flesh He was vulnerable to being tempted, yet He remained without sin. Some people argue that He had some supernatural strength in order to resist being tempted, while other will argue that He had no more than we have now, that being the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. I tend to agree with both. He was 100% man, and He was 100% God; so, yes He had some supernatural abilities, but He humbled Himself to be a servant, to be abused, and to be made an offering on our behalf. Besides that, He had a little first hand knowledge of what comes after this life, so being obedient to the Father might have been a little easier for Him than it is for you and I. Secondly, the way that He was treated was beyond just being bad, it was rediculous and evil to the core. And thirdly, He handled it like it was nobody's business but His own... "Who shall believe our message? To whom has the LORD revealed His powerful arm? My servant grew up in the LORD'S presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about His appearance, nothing to attract us to Him. He was dispised and rejected - a man of sorrows,acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our back on Him and looked the other way. He was dispised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses He carried; it was our sorrows that weighed Him down. And we thought His troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for His own sins! But He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed." (Isaiah 53:1-5) NLT