Who for the joy set before Him...

Heb. 12:2

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Heb. 12:3

For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

We continue with this amazing part of this verse; who for the joy set before Him endured the cross. Have you ever thought about this, really thought about it? If you have then more than a few questions must have popped into your mind. First what joy is he talking about? Did He know what the cross was in its entirety? When did He realize how much shame and blame wrongly placed He would face? Did the absolute fact of Him "knowing" that He was going to be seated down at the right hand of the throne of God propel Him to succeed? Who knew that one little tiny part of a verse could produce so many questions. I have learned, that it helps me when I am studying scripture to ask all the normal questions like who, what, when, where and how? In that process many many other questions or lines of inquiries manifest themselves. As I shared with my congregation recently, the easiest ( and hardest ) Bible study you can do is no matter what life question you have is go to the scriptures and stay in them till you find your answer. In that process the first step is always pray and mean it from the depths of your heart, because Jesus is the Word, the author of our faith, and the Holy Spirits job is to open that Word and show us all the hidden gems in that treasure chest!

John 1:1

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:2

The same was in the beginning with God.

John 14:16

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

John 14:17

Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

John 14:18

I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

John 14:26

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

Back to our verse, we know some things about our Lord from His word, such as where He was born, to whom He was entrusted, that He had siblings, etc. The scriptures do not give us every detail of His life rather only what God wanted us to know about Him. We know that He was raised in Nazareth, He worked as a carpenter and was baptized by John the Baptist. After this He started His public ministry. One thing that is noticeably absent is our Lords inner musings. We do not ever find any history of His thoughts about daily life in His diary or any books of poetry He wrote. The reason becomes apparent as we read all of scripture. He was laser focused on his Fathers plan, He never did anything outside of that. We have to be honest and confess that we are not so laser focused and found lacking usually. We mostly live for ourselves, as the next verse says, most of us have not understood the sacrifice He made. It takes commitment, desire and inspiration from the Holy Spirit to change the fact of our innate selfishness. As we mature in faith we slowly transform into disciples dying to self and becoming servants of the most High. I honestly believe we will never obtain perfection this side of Heaven but we should be progressing towards Him presenting ourselves as living sacrifices for His use.

Our Lord endured because of the joy set before Him, He had an awareness of the future, He knew that the plan was perfect. For this reason He was able to endure and preserver through all the hardships. When we give up and quit, throwing our arms up in the air having our little temper tantrums we are just telling on ourselves that we indeed are not looking for a city whose builder and maker is God. In fact it is because we are so focused on the here and now that we manifest the anger of the flesh in not getting our own way. The only way this existence makes any sense at all is that we have our reality centered in heaven, we are citizens of another dimension.

Col 3:1

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

Col 3:2

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

Until we too can see the joy that is set before us, we will always struggle to live here and end up just surviving. Ask yourself some serious questions, and be completely honest with yourself (God already knows). Do I really believe that my heavenly home is so very much better and real than here? If I don't, why? Ask God to change your perspective. Do I believe that my life is just a vapor or am I planting roots to be here forever? What your world view is, is extremely important. Let us call out to our merciful and gracious Lord for His grace and help to find ourselves rightly understanding who we are in Him!