Our savior is born. God loved and decided to send His one and only son to save the world. Jesus had to leave his usual heavenly glory and come to earth.
What do you think were the differences between the host and the home culture?
He wasn't just a great teacher and a prophet I believe He was the son of God who took a bodily form and crossed to come to us.
I can guess that it was very different. To make it worse Jesus did not just leave and enter the world. He had to be born as a baby and experience normal aging.
He had to understand not just the culture but humanity. Born as a baby and having to grow in a family and follow the usual stages of growth.
This was very different for him I guess.
He was therefore born within a culture with values, beliefs, and worldviews which some of them contradicted with those of where He came from.
Any contradictions you can guess?
So........
1. He knew why He came; Jesus was keen to do the will of the father who sent him- when we move we must understand why we are moving. What motivates our moving?
2. He identified with humanity by humbling himself and being born as a human baby- We must identify with the cultures we cross to. How hard this can get until we look at Jesus and how he demonstrates this for us. He identified yet did not become identical in sin especially.
3. He knew how to submit under the leadership of His parents, and leaders. When he needed to defy the earthly authorities, he did it very wisely. what does 'becoming like' look like?
4. Jesus remained fully God, and fully man- yet he did not take advantage of his authority but he related like a man yet fully God.
5. He was human in every way except for sin; He lived a completely sinless life.
6. He had physical needs and human emotions. We must understand what people go through when you cross to them.
He probably struggled with the values, beliefs, and behaviours of the host culture.
Though he took the form of a child it never affected his deity. He became fully human by taking on human flesh.
when we move cross-culturally we move because we have been loved and we love and we want to incarnate the love of God to the people we meet.
Jesus was the first cross-cultural missionary who came and incarnated the love of God to us.
He commands us to Go and make disciples.
Thank God for King Jesus's movement from heaven to earth, let's follow and GO.
Going is a shift in mindset, its more than geographical moving.
It's loving. It's seeing them the way God sees them.
Thank God Jesus came.
Gillian -@ my thoughts not arranged.
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