The question of how to follow Jesus in loving our enemies is in many ways a 3rd-culture issue.
As God's adopted children, the Bible tells us our citizenship is in heaven (我們是天國人 --- literally: We are Kingdom-of-Heaven people). Christians are all mixed culture in the sense that our earthly ethnic culture is temporary in comparison to eternity, but for all who believe and follow Jesus, the eternal King of Kings and Lord of Lords, our "forever culture" is that of the Kingdom of Heaven.
In many ways Bibilical Kingdom-of-Heaven culture is counter-culture and counter-intuitive to how so many of us have been brought up to perceive and respond to the world and to others.
We are each in the process of learning how to live and walk in our heavenly identity, becoming more like Jesus as we spend time with Him in His Word and in His Presence, learning to be more and more like Him.
(see Hebrews 希伯來書 11:9-16 & Philippians 腓立比書 3:20 。。。see also Romans 羅馬書 12:1-2)
In a spiritual sense we are all 3rd-culture kids, learning to live by God's heavenly culture of "agape" love --- the brotherly self-sacrificing love of Jesus, learning to consider others first, like Jesus, with healthy heavenly boundaries.
(((Think about it: in coming to earth and experiencing human limitations and struggles, what Jesus experienced in this fallen world was so very different from life in heaven. The eternally pre-existent God, the Living Word who created all things, was born to a poor family in an occupied country, experiencing all the struggles and weaknesses that humankind experiences (see John 1:1-5, 14-16; Hebrews 4:15-16, 5:1-10; also 1 Corinthians 10:13; 2 Corinthians 12:9) --- this should give us all increasing hope in seeking God's help with our struggles and weaknesses, including the challenge of learning how to love our enemies)))
Encouraged in the Lord,
Mary Isom
(guest blogger for my awesome husband, Bruce Isom)
Mary Isom
(guest blogger for my awesome husband, Bruce Isom)
