Jesus understands and sympathises with me when I am overwhelmed by negative emotions; he feels what I feel without condemning me. "We do not have a high priest who is unable to understand and sympathise and have a fellow feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but one who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning" (Heb 4:15 Amp).

Jesus welcomes me into his presence no matter what I have done or how I am feeling. "Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need" (Heb 4:16 NASB).

Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, was conceived out of wedlock. "Joseph, her [Mary's] fiancé, being a just man, decided to break the engagement quietly, so as not to disgrace her publicly" (Mt 1:19 NLT). Many neighbours would have despised, shunned and rejected Mary.

Jesus, as a tiny child, was threatened with death. "An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream … 'Escape to Egypt … Herod is going to search for the child to kill him'" (Mt 2:13 NIV).

Jesus, as an adult, had a death-threat hanging over him. "The Pharisees called a meeting and discussed plans for killing Jesus (Mt 12:14 NLT). [The chief priests and elders] "plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him" (Mt 26:4 NIV).

Jesus was not honoured by those closest to him. "Jesus said to them, 'Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honour'" (Mt 13:57 NIV). Even his brothers didn't believe in him (Jn 7:5 NLT). When his family heard what was happening, they tried to take him away. 'He's out of his mind,' they said" (Mk 3:21 NLT).

Jesus probably wasn't especially handsome. "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him (Isa 53:2 NIV). "Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (1Sm 16:7 NASB).

Jesus was treated with contempt. "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hid their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not" (Isa 53:3 NIV).

Jesus suffered life-crippling rejection, but it did not deter him in any way. "He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. (Jn 1:10-11 NLT).