Blog Archives - JAMES JANZEN MINISTRIES

Make it personal

7/28/2025

To make the verses from the last insight more relevant to your life, change the pronouns to personal pronouns. Here are verses four and five as examples. I encourage you to go back to the previous insights and do it for the whole passage.
Surely he has borne my griefs and carried my sorrows; yet I esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for my transgressions; he was crushed for my iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought my peace, and with his wounds I am healed.

Be Encouraged - Isaiah 53 - Part 1

7/26/2025

My goal in the recent insights has been to impress two things upon you. First, how close God is to the brokenhearted. Second, because Jesus is a man of sorrows, pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities, He understands and identifies with our pain.

After writing the previous insights based on Isaiah 53:2-3, I decided to read the rest of the chapter. I was so deeply moved by how verse after verse repeats these two ideas that I decided to share this chapter in two parts without any explanation. Read and reread to fully understand the God who wants to walk the trauma-recovery road and heal you.

Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he [Christ Jesus} grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs 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.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:1-6

Crushed For Us!

7/18/2025

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. Isaiah 53:4-5

Christ was crushed for our iniquities, for the things we have done wrong. The passage in Isaiah prophesied Jesus’ suffering, some of it in the garden of Gethsemane. The word Gethsemane means “oil press”. This location is not a coincidence. Jesus chose it because he wanted us to know what he was experiencing. He experienced what the olives experience in an oil press when a heavy stone crushes the olive and squeezes out the oil.

Luke describes Jesus' agony
And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Luke 22:44 (EVS)

Jesus experienced great agony when he realized that he would be carrying the weight of the sin of the whole world. As one without sin, he was about to experience the horror of all our sins. His trauma was so great that He sweat blood. Some wonder if this is true. Although rare, this condition has been documented as true in a number of cases and is caused by extreme distress.

Truly God understands your agony and is waiting to hear your cry for help. He wants to give you rest.

Do you want someone to carry your grief?

7/8/2025

I have good news for you. Jesus will! Notice the word “surely” in verse 4.
He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. Isaiah 53:3-4

Isaiah reminds us that because Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, He bears our griefs and carries our sorrows. Use God’s pattern given to us in the lament Psalms.
— Describe your grief as a cry for help.
— List your sorrows one by one. This is your complaint.
— Make a statement of trust based on these verses. God, I know that you are a compassionate God who can bear my griefs and carry my sorrows.
— Then make specific requests based on your sorrows and concerns.
—Finally, close with praise.
Father in heaven, I give you my grief and sorrow. I give you my questions, anger, pain, confusion, sorrows, and frustration. I praise You for carrying my griefs and my sorrows. I praise you because the burden of my grief and sorrow is less.