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Well team! We are at the half way point! In my first post I mentioned that there were 20 weeks until we left for Zambia and here we are at week 10! Time has flown and before we know it, we will be boarding the plane for our very long trip to the Southern Province of Africa.
For this week, we are going to review what we discussed in our last training session about Jesus becoming CROSS-cultural and the efforts it will take for us to “die to self” during this mission. How do we learn to express Christ’s attitude by surrendering our rights and become a servant for Him? Well, for a lot of people, this is much easier said than done. But we turn to Philippians 2:5-7 for our answer:
“5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”
In verse 6, it tells us that Christ is the very, exact nature of God – meaning Christ is God! Being God, Jesus had the rights to call the shots. He had the right to destroy those who harmed Him. He had the right to be understood and accepted, not misunderstood and rejected. He had the right to be praised, not mocked. Christ has all of God’s rights! Yet Jesus willingly did not consider, or even think about, holding on to these rights. He no longer tried to grasp His “God rights.” He surrendered them. Christ gladly released them.
When you are on this mission, there are things that you aren’t aware of now that you may try to hold on to then; thing you may try to grasp. Whatever rights team members try and hold onto end up consuming them. Imagine this: if you walked around all day grasping a pencil as hard as you could, your focus would shift to the pencil. Your energy would be in the pencil. This right to hold this pencil would distract you from other things.
Or you may adhere to the popular Christian philosophy, “I hold things with an open hand;” if so, the bottom line is that, open or not, you’re still holding on! You will still maintain some sense of focus on it. Choose to let it go! In that one decision, you will find freedom. Christ traded his own nature – the nature of Almighty God – for the nature of a servant. He traded the likeness of God for the likeness of a human being – just like you and me. In verse 7, it states, “he made himself nothing” in order to make us sons and daughters of God. By letting go of His rights, He transformed the world.
Just how do we obtain this servant like attitude? Making ourselves nothing and letting go of our rights that we so often think that we have? The very next verse in Philippians tells us, “8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!”
We are told in scriptures to take up our crosses daily and follow Him. We must crucify our selfish attitudes, our agendas, our desires, and our hopes daily. We must nail our complaints, our criticism and our sense of entitlement to the cross every single day. When your hands are nailed to the cross, what right can you possibly grasp? None.
In verse 8, Christ “humbled himself.” Humbling ourselves to become servants and willingly dying to ourselves is the pathway that leads to God’s glory! It also leads us to “know the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings” (Phil 3:10) in a whole new and more profound way.
Individually and as a team, we will need to go to the cross daily, crucify whatever attitudes or actions God reveals to you that stand in your way of having a servant’s heart and then follow Christ’s leadership for the day. This develops a CROSS-cultural attitude – a Calvary-focused perspective – that will prepare you to display proper cross-cultural behavior. As we serve others and die to ourselves, Christ will be revealed through us! As He is revealed, He will be exalted and people will be drawn to Him. In turn, we will be given the privilege of sharing Jesus Christ, the hope of the nations, with the Tonga people.
How will you know that you’re a genuine servant? When you serve and you’re treated like a servant by others – and you don’t care. Atukombe (let us pray). God, thank you for sending your Son to show us the ultimate service and sacrifice. Please help each and every one of us develop the CROSS-cultural attitude that we will need to have while in training and on the mission field. Remind us to pick up our crosses daily. Help us let go of the rights that we so desperately grasp which hinder our obedience to You. Teach us to be humble. Please show us that we must decrease, so that You may increase. Teach us to become nothing so that You can become something to the Tonga people.
In Jesus Name, Amen.
Most of the content for this devotional was taken directly from:
Ragan, Ben L. "Getting Started, Session 3." CULTURELink Team Member Manual. 3rd ed. Marietta: CULTURELink Resources, LLC, 2010. 67-70.
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