merican actor Ty Simpkins

To Be Like Us

Perhaps the young American actor, Ty Simpkins, expresses how many have felt about their grade school experience: “Recess and lunch are the best.”

So what would you think about some fifth graders that would voluntarily give up some recess time in order to learn a new skill?

There is a fifth grade class in Peoria, Illinois, that has been skipping recess to learn sign language.  The reason?  They have a deaf classmate.

Rhemy Elsey, a fifth-grader at Mark Bills Middle School in Peoria, was born mostly deaf.  While he hears partly with the help of a cochlear implant, he is also accompanied by an American Sign Language interpreter, Tammy Arvin, to assist him in communicating with his teachers and classmates.

Many of Rhemy’s classmates have taken it upon themselves to bridge the gap in communicating with him.  They started a club that meets once a month during recess to learn sign language.  Rhemy’s interpreter teaches the course.  At this point, they have learned enough to have basic conversations with him.  They all seem to enjoy it.

"It's like they want to be like me," Rhemy reported.

But the biggest difference, says Arvin, is the one she has seen in Rhemy.  She says he has “come out of his shell” and has been a lot more confident than he was before. *

God desires to have a relationship with each one of us.  But our sin separates us from Him (Isaiah 59:1-2).  Nevertheless, God still loves us, and He even wants to save us from our sins (1 Timothy 2:4).

So, to communicate His great love for us and to save us, God became like us in the person of His Son, Jesus.

“Therefore, in all things [Jesus] had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.  For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted” (Hebrews 2:17-18).

He became like one of us to identify with us and then to save us.  “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).  He paid the price for our sins by dying on the cross.

God will save those who place their faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from their sins in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and are baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of their sins (Acts 2:38).  His blood will continue to cleanse those who continue to walk in the light of His Word (1 John 1:7).

Jesus became like us to provide the grace and mercy to help us in time of need (Hebrews 4:14-16).

Won’t YOU respond to His love on His terms so that you may have the salvation and eternal life for which He came and died?

-- David A. Sargent