Heb.12:3,4 – Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
Consider Jesus, that is really what Hebrews is all about. It starts with “he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven”. We place our eyes on Jesus at His death, His resurrection, and His ascension to the place of glory at the Father’s right hand. In this passage we are being instructed to consider Jesus in His suffering. He suffered as a man in His life and ministry and especially in the hours that led to His death. Suffering affected Jesus in His humanity, it strengthened Him as He said yes to the Father and placed His eyes on the cross and the joy that would follow. We can learn from that. Life as a Christian, especially those in ministry, will experience all sorts of resistance, considering Jesus in all He faced certainly strengthens us. Andrew Murray speaks powerfully about this.
“If suffering wrought such blessing in Him, how surely in us too, for whose sake He was made perfect, to whom God has given Him as a Leader in the path that leads through suffering to glory, We may be sure of it, all that is most precious in a Christlike character-the virtues that were perfected in Him through suffering, the meekness and lowliness of heart, the gentleness and patience and submission of the Lamb of God, will come to us too if we will but consider Him. Looking to Jesus, the suffering One, will bring us the comfort of His sympathy, the courage of His victory, the blessed consciousness of conformity to Him. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, Striving against sin: the thought of His blood in Gethsemane and on Calvary, and the insignificance of our own suffering, will urge us to endure and resist. And we shall neither wax weary nor faint.”
So go ahead and consider Jesus even in His suffering. He was rejected by his hometown who tried to kill Him, rejected by His brothers until His resurrection, persecuted by the religious leaders throughout His ministry, betrayed by one of the twelve, and delivered up to death by the priests and spiritual leaders of Israel. He endured with His eyes on the heavenly reward. Consider Jesus and you will be strengthened like Him.