He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.  Ephesians 4:16 NLT

As crazy as it sounds, God made us because He wanted to have relationship with us. He made us for relationship, for love, which is why we feel so terrible when we’re lacking in either one. He made us to need Him and to need one another. That’s why He called His people the Body of Christ, with parts that have different functions. We are all different and designed to rely on one another.

When we don’t do life in relationship with other Jesus-followers, we miss the growth, health and love God intended for us to receive. But even more, we need to do daily life with other believers in order to be able to truly see ourselves. Author Andrea Lustrea notes, “C.S. Lewis said it best, ‘…He works on us through each other. Men are mirrors, or carriers of Christ to other men. Sometimes unconscious carriers.’ When we are in community, we are mirrors for each other. When we walk the path alone, we don’t have true perspective, because God made us for community.”[1]

We see ourselves and we come to see different aspects of Jesus’ character in the lives of others who aren’t like us. In the lives of other believers, I come to understand the scope and variety of the different ways God works: the ways He speaks, the ways He meets needs, and the ways He leads.

Have you seen Jesus in a friend that you do life with? Have you been a “carrier of Christ” to another?

 

Resource reading: Romans 1:11-12

[1] Andrea Lustrea, What Women Tell Me: Finding Freedom from the Secrets We Keep (Grand Rapids,MI: Zondervan, 2010), 36.