Incarnational

In 1969 I made the first of a number of trips to Ghana West Africa. We would go for 4 to 6 seeks at a time, preach on the streets and teach Bible classes in their schools. It was not the ideal way to do mission work, but the Lord blessed those efforts. I am so glad that our Father didn’t approach his mission to provide a Savior in the same way. Jesus didn’t just come on short trips to visit and share, He became one of us. That transformation was so complete that He was known as, Jesus of Nazareth. He was apart of community. “Thought he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to, instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being”, Phil. 2:6. This verse is the definition of John 1:14, “So the Word became human and made his home among us.” Literally it says he “pitched his tent among us”. When we speak of the incarnation we normally speak of how it enabled Jesus to be the offering for our sin. He truly did in a body of flesh what we in our bodies cannot do, and that is live a sinless life. But another dynamic of His becoming one of us was that it gave Him the ability to relate to our weaknesses and gave us the ability to relate to Him as a human being. (Heb. 2:14ff). In my post on Friday I stated that we may have to make some radical changes if we are ever going to reach our world with the Good News. One of those changes I believe will be in the way we seek to reach certain target groups. If we reach out to these groups as I first did mission work, we may meet with some success, but it will be limited. Until someone is willing to make a “Christ like sacrifice” and be willing to lay aside their privileged status, and become one of them, I fear they will never be able to relate. This is how we become incarnational with the Gospel. Jesus’ ability to relate to us was a direct result of his life experience. Our ability to relate to Him was dependent upon that as well. I was reading this morning about a couple in Great Britain that has chosen to hang out at a local Pub a few evening a week in order to reach others with the Gospel. Our first thought might be that, “well that is not the kind of place you would expect to find a Christian couple”, and that my friends is the problem. That is also what surprised the religious folks of Jesus’ day. Sharing the Good News is not about a class you take, a campaign you go on to preach to the lost, it is about a Christ like life style lived among those you want to reach. It is about being able to relate, us to them, them to us. It is all about relationships.