“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.”
(Hebrews 4:15 NIV)
God Empathizes with You
Do you know that God has an empathetic heart? And do you believe that God has compassion toward you, and “feels for” you and all your weaknesses?
Do you know that the One who rules all things, governs all circumstances, holds all power and authority, whose mind comprehends all mysteries, who has no limit to his understanding or ability, who needs nothing but exists entirely self-sufficiently—this God—empathizes with us, his creation?
I read Hebrews 4:15 in passing and paused. “We do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses,” it says. That means our high priest is able to empathize with our weaknesses.
The word “empathize” here comes from the Greek word sympatheo, from which we get our term sympathy. It means “to be affected with the same feeling as another.”[1] So Hebrews tells us that we have a high priest who knows what it feels like to be human, and to share our weaknesses.
Who is our high priest? The book of Hebrews tells us how Jesus is our high priest, and how Jesus is God himself in the flesh.
In a moment all my loose strands of thought tied up into a unified cord: God is able to empathize with my weaknesses.
God’s Greatest Act of Empathy
How is it that an eternal unchanging God can understand the passing of time, or my aging body? To what extent can the limitless God understand my tiredness, hunger, weariness, thirst, and frailty? How can a Holy God understand the pull that sin has on my heart to lead me away from him and toward evil? To what degree can a God in total control understand the debilitating power of physiological anxiety? How can God who is Spirit understand when my body hurts?
Because long ago, God became like me and you (Philippians 2:6-7). God became a man and lived among us (John 1:14). He did this to save us from all our weaknesses and woes and to bear the wrath our sins deserve. But he also did it as the greatest act of loving, intimate friendship. He did not save us from all our weaknesses and woes, merely. He shared it, shouldered it.
God became a man, who we know as the Lord Jesus. The timeless God lived 33 years on earth, growing from embryo in a womb to mature man (Matthew 1:20; Luke 2:52; Luke 3:23). The limitless God hungered, walked till his feet hurt, pulled all-nighters to pray his heart out (Matthew 21:18; John 4:6; Luke 6:12). The Holy God came face-to-face with the Devil, with death, with the difficulty of following the Father’s will, and was tempted in every way we experience (Matthew 4:1-11; Matthew 26:38-39). The God who wrote the laws of the universe, science, and ordered the material world resigned himself to the consequences of our lawbreaking as our substitute (Romans 5:7-8). The God whose face could not be seen, became a man whose face we could see (2 Corinthians 4:6).
The Comfort of Knowing an Empathetic God
Our God empathizes with our pain. There is much about our pain that God has not revealed to us, but he has revealed his compassionate heart for us in our pain, and his desire to walk with us through it. You may say that you doubt God’s heart—as we all do at times. But when you doubt his heart, consider his words, and his deeds. You have a God who says that he can empathize with your weaknesses. The Bible tells the story of God’s journey into empathy—how he planned from eternity past to enter into your weaknesses so that he might make his glory known to the world, and his love known to you personally (Ephesians 1:7-10).
You have a God who has proved his compassion for you. He became a man. He understands. I do not know the shape of your weaknesses. I don’t know God’s plan or purpose behind the thorns that you live with (2 Corinthians 12:9).
But I know that God understands. He can empathize with you. Perhaps in this truth alone, you can sense some of his great love for you. That’s what this verse manifested to me. I have a God who cares, and his care led him to come to me. When I doubt my God cares, I can remember that he came, and because he has come and walked through life as I have, he can empathize with me.
God has an empathetic heart; the Bible tells us so.
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Source
[1] Blue Letter Bible https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g4834/kjv/tr/0-1/