Isaiah 53:4-5 “Surely He has borne our grief’s and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with His wounds we are healed.”

Hebrews 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."

Romans 8:18 “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory which shall be revealed in us”

When I look at Isaiah 53, I am taken aback by the Hebrew word for "afflicted". In modern Hebrew this word means "tortured". When I was young, (a while ago) and first learned what torture actually
involved, it messed me up! To think that a person could be kept alive for the purpose of intentionally causing him intense agonizing pain was astounding to my young mind. It frightened me. We read about people who have been tortured, with a kind of horrified awe.

While I had a concept of the suffering Jesus endured, for some
reason the understanding that He was tortured for our iniquities brought my awareness to a new level. His identification with our
suffering and His experience of this torture so fully absorbed Him that He experienced what must have felt like infinite isolation and pain. Somehow it comforted me; to know that the Son of God
understands by experience, torture and suffering unthinkable.

But then, I realized that on the other hand I could not begin to
comprehend the glory that awaited Him after His suffering. And that His suffering purchased for me a portion of that glory. The apostle Paul states his understanding about our sufferings with almost
light-hearted conviction; that they are not even “worthy” to be
compared with the glory that awaits us. This, to me, could be the most amazing promise in all of scripture.

Suffering is everywhere. It may be you, or someone you love, or people you don’t even know but are praying for. But all of it, every flaming ounce of it has been successfully absorbed into the body of Jesus the Messiah. He was tortured for us - suffered death for us
so that our sufferings are trifles in the light of eternity. It’s been said this way: From heaven, the most miserable earthly life will look like one bad night in a cheap hotel. Thank the Lord.