He is no stranger to your sensations. He is acquainted with everything that belongs to human nature, sin only excepted. (a) Are you poor and needy? So also was Jesus. The foxes had holes, the birds of the air had nests, but the Son of man had nowhere to lay His head. He dwelt in a despised city. Men used to say,"Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" (John 1:46). He was esteemed a carpenter's son. He preached in a borrowed boat, road into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey, and was buried in a borrowed tomb. (b) Are you alone in the world, and neglected by those who ought to love you? So also was Jesus. He came unto His own, and they received Him not. He came to be a Messiah to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and they rejected Him. The princes of this world would rather not acknowledge Him. The few who followed Him were publicans and fishermen. And even those at the last forsook Him, and were scattered every man to his own place.

(c) Are you misunderstood, misrepresented, slandered, and persecuted? So also was Jesus. He was called a glutton and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans, a Samaritan, a madman, and a devil. His character was belied. False charges were laid against Him, and though innocent, He was condemned as a malefactor, and as such died on the cross. (d) Does Satan tempt you, and offer horrid suggestions to your mind? So also did he tempt Jesus. He bade Him to distrust God's fatherly providence. "Command these stones to be made bread." He proposed Him to tempt God by exposing Himself to unnecessary danger. "Cast thyself down" from the pinnacle of the temple. He suggested to Him to obtain the kingdoms of the world for His own, by one little act of submission to himself. "All these things wil I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me" (Matt. 4:1-10).

(e) Do you ever feel great agony and conflict of mind? Do you feel in darkness as if God had left you? So did Jesus. Who can tell the extent of the sufferings of mind He went through in the garden? Who can measure the depth of His soul's pain when He cried, "My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me" (Matt. 27:46)? It is impossible to conceive a Savior more suited to the wants of man's heart than our Lord Jesus Christ---suited not only by His power, but by His sympathy--suited not only in His divinity, but by His humanity. Labor I beseech you, to get firmly impressed on your mind that Christ, the refuge of souls, is Man as well as God. Honor Him as King of kings, and Lord of lords. But while you do this, never forget that He had a body and was a Man. Grasp this truth and never let it go. The unhappy Socinian errs fearfully when he says Christ was only Man, and not God. But let not the rebound from that error make you forget that while Christ was very God He was also very Man. —Holiness, J.C. Ryle, pp. 200-202