Jesus With Skin On It

I love small group meetings like last night. The Highland staff decided to spend two Wednesday nights in a row having the church break up into small groups and meet with their shepherding groups. We met in the gym for Starbucks coffee, which is a great way to begin fellowship. Then we went to our various rooms to meet and minister to one another.

Jim and Jody Reese, a fellow elder couple, joined Susan and me in hosting our shepherding groups. We had them go around the circle, interviewing their neighbor and then letting them tell about the person they interviewed. We learned so much about one another.

Then I asked them a couple questions on a handout that Dickie Porche, our administrative minister, had prepared. Several of us told stories of how we've seen the Lord work in the Highland church. The most touching stories to me were those people told about how the body of Christ ministered to them. They mentioned how they had faced a crisis in their life and tried to handle it on their own. It wasn't until they opened up to some fellow Christians and asked for prayer that they were deeply helped.

We closed our time together by standing in a circle for a prayer and to sing one verse of "Great is Thy Faithfulness." I asked Foy Jackson, who led singing for Highland during his college days, to lead us. Before he did, he told the coolest story about why this song means so much to him. When his mother was in a hospital dying of cancer, one of her sources of comfort was listening over and over to a Sandi Patti tape -- singing "Great is Thy Faithfulness." Through an amazing set of circumstances, Sandi got wind of this and called Foy's mother at the hospital, telling her how much it meant to her to know that her voice blessed this woman. She then prayed for Foy's mother on the phone...and in a few days this ailing woman went home to sing to Jesus for eternity.

During our elders meeting a few of us processed what happened in our shepherding groups. Apparently a number of them also had wonderful experiences as we did. At the end, Foy Pinson led a beautiful prayer, thanking the Lord for how we meet Him and are so often ministered by Him through the body of Christ.

When I reflected this morning about how we saw the Lord work last night, this phrase came to mind: Jesus with skin on it. That's what we were experiencing. That's Who we were experiencing.

Over the 30 years of knowing and following Jesus, He has taught me that the more dependent and confessional and honest we are with the body of Christ, the more Jesus shows up. We experience His healing touch, at times His gentle rebuke, and His daily provision when we allow Jesus to love us through our fellow believers.

And little may we realize that today, when we do even the smallest thing for another person because of our love for Christ, they will meet Jesus once more -- Jesus wrapped up in our skin.

Jim