Eating breakfast at a conference in Malaysia found me at a table of healthcare workers from a restricted country. Our pleasant conversation caused me to ask how I could encourage or help them. Their response caught me off guard. "Wear our skin" was their gentle but firm reply. Explaining further, one of them said, "Come live with us, come eat our food, come suffer with us. Then you will know exactly how to help us."
My sincere effort to be helpful was clothed in ignorance and naivete. I learned that providing assistance requires deep understanding of the need and is often personally costly – it requires sacrificial understanding and sacrificial service. I needed to "wear their skin".
That is just what God did – He wore my skin – in order to solve the dilemma of my debt of sin. As Jesus, He became human flesh, living the life of a common man. Then He suffered the ultimate price, death, in order to provide the only possible payment that could erase my indebtedness to God – amazing!!
Since the children [mankind] have flesh and blood, he [Jesus] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death–that is, the devil–and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (Hebrews 2:14-15 NIV)
Join me in recognizing the true cost of understanding and providing help to those in need – "wear their skin".
Sharing the journey with you,
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