How Jesus feels about those of us who suffer
John Newton wrote this letter to a friend who was suffering:
It is a comfortable consideration, that He with whom we have to do, our great High Priest, who once put away our sins by the sacrifice of himself, and now for ever appears in the presence of God for us, is not only possessed of sovereign authority and infinite power, but wears our very nature, and feels and exercises in the highest degree those tendernesses and commiserations, which I conceive are essential to humanity in its perfect state.
He condescended to mingle tears with mourners, and wept over distresses which He intended to relieve. He is still the same in his exalted state; compassions dwell within his heart.
In a way inconceivable to us, but consistent with his supreme dignity and perfection of happiness and glory, He still feels for his people. When Saul persecuted the members upon earth, the head complained from heaven; and sooner shall the most tender mother sit insensible and inattentive to the cries and wants of her infant, than the Lord Jesus be an unconcerned spectator of his suffering children. No, with the eye, and the ear, and the heart of a friend, He attends to their sorrows.
He knows our path, and adjusts the time, the measure of our trials, and every thing that is necessary for our present support and seasonable deliverance, with the same unerring wisdom and accuracy as He weighed the mountains in scales, and hills in a balance, and meted out the heavens with a span.
Still more, besides his benevolent, He has an experimental sympathy. He knows our sorrows, not merely as He knows all things, but as one who has been in our situation, and who, though without sin himself, endured, when upon earth, inexpressibly more for us than He will ever lay upon us.
What, then, shall we fear, or of what shall we complain? when all our concerns are written upon his heart, and their management, to the very hairs of our head, are under his care and providence; when He pities us more than we can do ourselves, and has engaged his almighty power to sustain and relieve us.