Along life’s journey, no one can avoid worries, hardships, and heartache. When we’re hurt, discouraged, or grieving, we yearn for someone to understand what we’re going through. We may get some relief by opening up to friends or family, but sometimes they can’t fully understand. We still feel a deep need in our heart.

So who can we turn to? We may think Jesus can’t understand everything we’re going through. But He can! We can be assured of this fact based on God’s Word.

In fact, Hebrews 2:17 is a priceless verse in the Bible. It says:

“Hence He [Jesus] should have been made like His brothers in all things that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in the things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”

Today we’ll focus on three crucial phrases from this verse with help from notes from the New Testament Recovery Version. We’ll see that our dear Lord Jesus can genuinely understand and sympathize with us like no one else can, and that He alone can meet our deep inward need.

1. “Made like His brothers in all things”

First, what does it mean that Jesus was made like His brothers in all things? Note 1 on Hebrews 2:17 in the Recovery Version explains:

“The Son of God was made like us, His brothers, in that He partook of blood and flesh (v. 14). This was done for two purposes, one negative and the other positive. The negative purpose was to destroy for us the devil, who is in the flesh. The positive purpose is to be our merciful and faithful High Priest who has the human nature, that He may sympathize with us in all things.”

This note references Hebrews 2:14, which says:

“Since therefore the children have shared in blood and flesh, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death He might destroy him who has the might of death, that is, the devil.”

Why did Jesus, the Son of God, partake of blood and flesh? For two reasons: to destroy the devil in the flesh through His death, and to become a genuine man with human nature who is able to sympathize with us.

With this in mind, let’s consider Jesus’ life on earth.

Isaiah 53 is a great prophecy and revelation of Jesus in the Old Testament. It says that He would be a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. From being placed in a lowly manger at His birth to enduring a humiliating, agonizing death on the cross, Jesus experienced unimaginable suffering throughout His entire life. He grew up in a poor carpenter’s home in Nazareth, a despised region. He knew firsthand what hunger, thirst, weariness, and poverty were. He knew what it was to be rejected, misunderstood, mocked, and slandered. He experienced every facet of human life. As a man, He endured suffering we can’t even fathom.

The Gospels reveal that Jesus cared deeply for the human beings He came to live among and minister to. He healed the sick, cleansed lepers, and gave sight to the blind. He taught the truth and spoke tender words of compassion to those who were forlorn and miserable.

Jesus cared for every kind of person, no matter how vile. This caused those who didn’t appreciate Him to belittle Him by calling Him a friend of sinners. But how wonderful for all of us that He is indeed a friend of sinners!

Because of what He experienced in His life on earth, Jesus can understand anything we’re going through, no matter how terrible or distressing. We can be sure that whatever situation we’re in, He shares in our feelings, sympathizes with us, and cares for us. All this is possible because He was made like us, His brothers, by partaking in blood and flesh.

2. “That He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest”

Now we’ll look at the second important phrase in Hebrews 2:17: that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest. Note 2 on High Priest in the Recovery Version explains:

“As the High Priest, Christ ministers God Himself and the riches of the divine life to us. As the God-man, He is more than fully qualified to be our High Priest. Here, merciful corresponds with His being a man; faithful corresponds with His being God.”

In the Old Testament, the high priest served God and made intercession on behalf of God’s people. The high priest in the Old Testament is a picture, and Jesus is the reality, the fulfillment of this picture. Jesus, our real High Priest, is both God and man. As a man made like us in all things, He’s merciful to us and able to understand us. We can come to Him and be assured that He sympathizes with us in our affliction.

What’s more, as God, Jesus is our faithful High Priest. When we’re suffering, He ministers God Himself and the unlimited riches of the divine life into us to meet our need. We may not even know what we need, but our faithful High Priest knows and ministers strength, love, hope, encouragement, endurance, joy, and so much more.

Speaking of the kind of High Priest Jesus is for us, Hebrews 4:15-16 says:

“For we do not have a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all respects like us, yet without sin. Let us therefore come forward with boldness to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace for timely help.”

How precious it is that Jesus is touched with the feeling of our weaknesses. We can come to our merciful, faithful High Priest with boldness, assured that we will receive mercy and find grace for timely help.

3. “To make propitiation for the sins of the people”

We come now to the third important phrase in Hebrews 2:17: to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

At some point, we’ve probably felt afraid to come to Jesus and pour out what’s on our heart to Him. Maybe we feel unworthy, or full of guilt that we’ve been away from Him for a while. Maybe we’ve experienced a failure in our Christian life.

But if this is our situation, we need to realize that the Lord made propitiation for our sins. Note 4 on propitiation in the Recovery Version explains:

“Jesus made propitiation for our sins, thereby satisfying the demand of God’s righteousness and appeasing the relationship between God and us, that God may be peacefully gracious to us.”

It’s impossible for us to make our sinful condition right before God in and of ourselves. But Jesus loved us to such an extent that He laid down His life for us. He resolved our problem of sin by fulfilling all the righteous demands of God through His death on the cross. This was true when we first believed in Jesus and accepted Him as our Savior, and it’s also true when we’ve sinned after we’re saved.

Of course, if we’ve sinned, we need to repent—that is, turn back to God—and confess our sins to Him. By turning to Him and confessing our sins, we can enjoy His propitiation and be forgiven and cleansed with His blood. Then we can come to the Lord without any fear or lingering guilt.

Hebrews 2:17 is truly a marvelous verse that shows us Jesus was made like us in all things so He could truly understand us. He is our merciful and faithful High Priest who can sympathize with us and meet our inward need, and He is the One who made propitiation for us.

No matter what difficult situation we’re going through, we can be assured that Jesus understands us fully and sympathizes with us deeply. And because He made propitiation for us, we can come to Him at any time.

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How do we experience the sympathy and ministry of Jesus?

Now let’s consider how we can experience the Lord sympathizing with and ministering to us in our daily lives.

First, we should realize that the Lord isn’t far away from us. When we were saved, Christ came to live in our spirit, our deepest part. He’s always available and accessible to us. Anytime, anywhere, in any situation, we can draw near to Him in our spirit.

Second, when our conscience makes us aware we’ve committed a sin, we should confess that sin to the Lord so we can be forgiven and cleansed by His blood. This removes any barrier between us and the Lord so we can come to Him freely.

Third, we can come to the Lord by fellowshipping with Him in prayer. It really helps to open our mouth and pray audibly to the Lord. We can speak freely to Him and pour out everything that’s on our heart to Him.

Many of us can testify that as we uttered what was on our heart to the Lord in prayer, we were soothed by His sympathy and tender care. Though our outward situation didn’t necessarily change, we were encouraged and enlivened because Jesus ministered something of God into our being, meeting our deepest need. Words can’t express how wonderful this experience is.

We hope you’re encouraged by the words in Hebrews 2:17 and the notes in the New Testament Recovery Version. No matter what we’re going through, we can come to the Lord in prayer and experience the loving care of our merciful and faithful High Priest. If you live in the US, you can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.

By reading Romans 8 carefully, we see that the Christian walk is a matter not of endeavoring to live a faultless, ethical life but of walking according to the spirit. The Lord Jesus suffered death on the cross not only to forgive us of our sins, but also to become the life-giving Spirit in resurrection. When we believed in Him and were born again, He as the Spirit entered into our spirit. And when we walk according to the Spirit in our spirit, we spontaneously live the Christian life God desires us to have.

In this post, we’ll discuss the crucial role of the mind related to walking according to the spirit with the help of verses and notes in the New Testament Recovery Version.

The importance of the mind in Romans 8

Let’s begin by reading Romans 8:4-6:

“That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit. For those who are according to the flesh mind the things of the flesh; but those who are according to the spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.”

So we see that immediately following verse 4, which speaks of those who walk according to the spirit, verses 5 and 6 both mention the word mind.

Let’s focus on Romans 8:6:

“For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.”

Note 1 in the Recovery Version helps us understand the meaning of the mind set on the flesh. The first part of the note explains:

“Lit., the mind of the flesh. In vv. 6-8 the crucial item is the mind. The mind is the leading part of the soul, which is man’s personality, his person. The mind thus represents the soul, that is, the person himself.”

God created us with three parts: a spirit, a soul, and a body. And as the leading part of our soul, our mind represents our person.

Now let’s read the next part of the note:

“In this chapter the mind is neutral, being between the regenerated mingled spirit and the fallen body, the flesh. Chapters 7 and 8 show that the mind may have two different actions, by which it can cause us to be either in the spirit or in the flesh.”

Our human spirit, where the Holy Spirit dwells once we’re regenerated, is the deepest part of our being. To illustrate, let’s think of the three parts of our being as three concentric circles, as shown in the diagram below. The innermost circle is our spirit. The outermost circle is our body, which was changed to the flesh of sin in the fall of man. The middle circle is our soul, situated between our spirit and our fallen, sinful flesh.

Now let’s read the rest of the note, which shows us the very different consequences of setting our mind on the spirit or the flesh:

“If it [the mind] relies on and attaches itself to the regenerated spirit, which is mingled with the Spirit of God, the mind will bring us into the spirit and into the enjoyment of the divine Spirit as the law of the Spirit of life (v. 2). If the mind attaches itself to the flesh and acts independently, it will bring us into the flesh, causing us to be at enmity with God and to be unable to please Him (vv. 7-8).”

Our mind, being neutral, can go in one of two directions. What it relies on and attaches itself to determines whether we’re in our spirit or in our flesh.

The mind set on the flesh or on the spirit

Throughout each day, we have a choice to make: do we set our mind on the flesh or on the spirit? As Romans 8:6 tells us, setting the mind on the flesh results in death, but setting the mind on the spirit results in life and peace.

Of course, we would all say we want life and peace instead of death. But whether we enjoy life and peace all depends on where we set our mind.

Before we were saved, our spirit was dead and without Christ. We didn’t have the option of setting our mind on the spirit. We automatically lived in and walked according to the flesh and spontaneously committed sins.

The book of Romans was written to believers in Christ. And in Romans 8:6 Paul makes it clear that even after we’re saved, it’s still possible for us to set our mind on the flesh.

Experiencing death versus life and peace

In writing that the mind set on the flesh is death, Paul wasn't referring to physical death but to spiritual death. Similarly, setting the mind on the spirit results in spiritual life and peace. We experience both spiritual death and spiritual life through particular inward sensations.

Note 2 on Romans 8:6 in the Recovery Version sheds some more light on how we experience death versus life and peace. The first paragraph of this note says:

“Life and peace result from setting our mind on the spirit. When our mind is set on the spirit, our outward actions are in agreement with our inner man and there is no discrepancy between us and God. He and we are at peace, not at enmity (v. 7). The result is that we feel peaceful within.”

When we set our mind on the spirit, we feel peaceful, restful, satisfied, and even joyful inwardly; there’s no disagreement, no controversy between us and the Lord.

Now let’s read the first part of the second paragraph of this note:

“When our mind is set on the flesh and the things of the flesh, the result is death, which causes us to feel separated from the enjoyment of God. We feel uneasy and deadened instead of peaceful and living.”

So when we set our mind on the flesh, we feel spiritually dead and separated from the enjoyment of God. Consequently, we feel uneasy and weak. These negative feelings warn us that we’re not setting our mind on the spirit. In whatever we’re doing, thinking, or saying, we’re not living according to the life of Christ in our spirit.

Now let’s read the rest of the note:

“When we are minding the flesh and setting our mind on the things of the flesh, the sense of death should serve as a warning to us, urging us to be delivered from the flesh and to live in the spirit.”

So the negative feelings resulting from death, or the sense of death, are actually very helpful to us. They tell us where we are and warn us to stop what we’re doing.

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A practical example

In our Christian life, we’ve all experienced the negative feelings of death that come from setting our mind on the flesh.

As an example, let’s say we’re reading the news online. At first, we feel fine. Then, after a while, we click on another link and then another, and we end up reading all kinds of things. The Lord within us says, “Stop,” but we ignore Him and keep going. Then we begin to feel empty and uneasy, and we sense darkness within. These are all sensations of death that clearly indicate we’re setting our mind on the flesh.

Reading the news isn’t in itself sinful. But by not heeding the Lord’s speaking to stop, we set our mind on the flesh and end up experiencing spiritual death.

On the other hand, we’ve also experienced spiritual life and peace. We can surely recall fellowshipping with the Lord or reading His Word and sensing joy, peace, and inward light.

But how do we experience this in our daily life? Let’s use the example of reading the news again. But this time, when the Lord within us says, “That's enough. Stop here,” we obey this inward urging and stop reading. Then we immediately sense satisfaction, joy, and peace, and we feel strengthened and enlivened.

What a contrast between the sense of death and the sense of life and peace!

Practicing to set our mind on the spirit

Setting our mind on the spirit doesn’t mean we just sit around thinking about Christ all the time and neglect our work or studies. Instead, while we’re working, studying, driving, taking a walk—whatever we’re doing—we stay in contact with the Lord in our spirit.

Setting our mind on the spirit takes a conscious effort on our part. It’s not something we’re used to. And if we take a passive approach, our mind drifts and automatically becomes set on the flesh.

But there are a few things we can do to help us set our mind on our spirit every day.

One is to begin the day reading and praying with the Word of God. As we enjoy the Lord in His Word and partake of Him, we’re setting our mind on the spirit. Having this time in the morning can also help us set our mind on the spirit throughout the day.

For instance, let’s say that one morning you enjoy reading and praying with Ephesians 1:4:

“Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before Him in love.”

You experience life and peace as you pray with this verse. But even afterwards, as you go about your day, part of the verse may come back to you: He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. Wherever you are, you can pray: “Oh, Lord Jesus, thank You for choosing me! Lord, You chose me before the foundation of the world. Thank You, Lord.”

We can also set our mind on the spirit by talking to the Lord in a simple way throughout the day. As we’re driving to work, we can tell Him about any worries we might have and ask Him to lead us through them. We can thank Him for His provisions and fellowship with Him about anything that’s on our heart. And even simply calling on the name of the Lord Jesus brings our mind back to the spirit.

And whenever we sense death, we need to stop whatever we’re doing and immediately turn back to the Lord. We can pray, “Lord Jesus, I repent and turn again to You. I set my mind on my spirit right now!”

Like physical exercise, the more we practice setting our mind on our spirit, the more it will become a normal part of our life. We’ll develop a stronger taste for life and peace, and we’ll learn to turn more quickly from what causes us to experience spiritual death. The more we do this, the more we’ll grow in the Lord and live by the divine life of Christ in us. Then God will be expressed in our living to all the people around us, fulfilling His desire.

To find out more about this subject, we encourage you to read chapter 17 of The Economy of God here. You can download this book for free from anywhere in the world. And if you live in the US, you can order a free New Testament Recovery Version with its enlightening commentary here.

In a previous post, we saw that when the apostle Paul wrote, “Jesus Christ is in you” in 2 Corinthians 13:5, he wasn’t speaking metaphorically, but literally. It’s a wonderful fact that when we repented and believed in Him, Christ actually came into us.

Specifically, Christ came to dwell in our human spirit, our deepest part. The fact that Christ is in our spirit isn’t just something for us to know objectively; it’s something we can experience and enjoy all the time.

So in this post, we’ll discuss how we can experience Christ living in us in a practical way. We’ll read some verses and notes in the New Testament Recovery Version to help us.

A frustrating cycle

After we’re saved, most of us have certain ideas about how we should live the Christian life. We expend a great deal of effort to live up to certain standards. But as hard as we try, we usually fail.

Let’s use losing our temper as an example. We all have this problem, to one degree or another. We know it isn’t a good thing, so we struggle against it, trying again and again to suppress our temper as it rises in us. But when something irritates us enough, we blow up.

After a while, we calm down, and, feeling ashamed and convicted, we confess to the Lord and ask Him to forgive us. We experience His forgiveness and cleansing, and our fellowship with Him is restored. Maybe we then pray something like this: “Lord, please help me not lose my temper again. Please give me more patience.”

Yet the next day, or maybe even the next hour, we find ourselves reacting impatiently to another situation, and our temper flares up again. Even though we had prayed earnestly for patience, we discover we have no more patience than before.

So we find ourselves in a frustrating cycle, and we wonder why the Lord isn’t answering our prayers. What’s wrong?

The problem is this: the Lord doesn't want to help us control our temper. And He doesn’t want to give us patience. Actually, the Lord Jesus, who now lives in us, wants to be our patience.

Our union with Christ

It's not a simple matter for Jesus Christ to be able to enter into us and live in us.

On His side, Christ had to take some tremendous steps for this to happen: He became a man, died on the cross, and was resurrected. First Corinthians 15:45 says:

“So also it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul’; the last Adam [Christ] became a life-giving Spirit.”

Before His death and resurrection, Christ could only be with people. He couldn’t be in them. But in resurrection, He became a life-giving Spirit, able to enter into all who believe in Him.

And on our side, we needed to repent and believe in Him. The moment we did, Christ as the life-giving Spirit entered into our deepest part, our spirit.

Not only so, 1 Corinthians 6:17 even tells us:

“But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.”

Now the Spirit and our human spirit are one. This is a marvelous fact!

And that’s not all. Colossians 3:4 says:

“When Christ our life is manifested.”

The Christ who came as the Spirit to live in our spirit is now our life. Note 1 on this verse in the New Testament Recovery Version helps us understand the meaning of this verse:

“That Christ is our life is a strong indication that we are to take Him as life and live by Him, that we are to live Him in our daily life in order to experience the universally extensive Christ revealed in this book [Colossians], so that all He is and has attained and obtained will not remain objective but will become our subjective experience.”

Christ didn’t go through so much to live in us just so He could help us live a good, ethical life. He doesn’t want us to merely ask Him for things like patience and love when we need them.

Instead, the Christian life is a life in which Christ lives and does everything in us, with us, and through us. He wants us to take Him as our life and live by Him in all our circumstances.

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How can we experience Christ living in us?

If we see that Christ lives in us, that we’re one spirit with Him, and that He’s even our life, we’ll realize He’s present with us in every situation and ready to be applied at any time. He wants to live in and with us in every instance. So how can we experience this?

Let’s return to the example of losing our temper. Let’s say something vexing happens again, and we feel our temper rising. We would usually, and unsuccessfully, try to suppress our anger.

But if we instead turn to Christ in our spirit right then and there, we’ll experience Christ, the uniquely patient One. He endured all kinds of ill-treatment and vexing situations throughout His life on earth. And He wants us to enjoy and experience Him being our patience and endurance. Then instead of expressing ourselves as we fight to control our temper, we express Christ as our patience.

It’s not a matter of mere outward imitation of what we think He would do. He wants us to live by Him in every situation. If we need patience, we can experience Christ being our patience. If we need hope, we can experience Christ as our hope.

A practical way to experience Christ in our spirit

One of the best ways to instantly turn to and experience Christ in our spirit is to call upon His name. By calling on the Lord Jesus, we contact Him as the Spirit dwelling in our spirit.

Depending on the circumstances, we may call, “Oh, Lord Jesus,” softly under our breath. Or if we’re alone, we can cry out to Him loudly. We may be very upset when we start calling, but as we contact Him, we experience Him quieting our being and becoming our patience.

As we call, we experience what is written in Romans 10:12:

“For the same Lord is Lord of all and rich to all who call upon Him.”

The Lord is rich to us in patience, in calmness, in long-suffering, in endurance—in whatever we need to face any circumstance. Calling upon Him is a simple way to contact Him in our spirit and enjoy all that He is to us.

By calling on the Lord and enjoying His riches, we also experience Romans 10:13:

“For ‘whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”

Saved in this verse refers not only to our initial salvation; it also refers to being saved from negative things in our lives after we’ve received the Lord. We all have to admit that every day we need to be saved from many things, including losing our temper.

Note 2 on this verse in the Recovery Version says:

“To be saved here means to be brought into the enjoyment of the riches of the Lord. The Lord is rich to both Jews and Greeks. All who call on the Lord’s name enjoy this rich Lord; as a result, they are filled with Him and express Him.”

On one hand, by calling on the Lord we’re saved from negative things; on the other, we’re brought into the enjoyment of the riches of Christ. And as we enjoy these riches, we’re filled with Him and express Him in our daily lives.

So instead of asking for a thing, such as patience, we experience a wonderful Person, the living Christ in us, as the real solution to our problems.

Experiencing Christ daily

It helps to begin our day by spending time to contact Christ in our spirit. During this time, we can confess our sins to Him, fellowship with Him about anything, and pray with His Word. The more regularly we do this, the more we’ll experience Christ living in us and the more we’ll enjoy Him.

Then throughout the day, we can continue to call upon the name of the Lord to experience Him in all the situations of our daily life, turning to Him in our spirit to be one with Him. Then we’ll express the Christ who is our life automatically and spontaneously. Praise the Lord, Christ lives in us!

If you live in the US, you can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here to read all the notes on the verses mentioned in this post.