God’s Passion for Flavour
God loves variety. Variety is His identity and His nature. We see a glimpse of it in the Trinity too. He expresses Himself in various ways. There are innumerable proofs of this all around us. No two people’s faces are identical. All of our finger prints are unique. That is variety in every nook, centre, and corner. God revels in differences. Same applies to the varied cultures around us. It truly is limitless. How boring it would be if God can be understood and thereby identifies Himself only with one particular culture! It sure would be unfair, unfit, and uncomfortable to live in this planet. God Himself is multifaceted in personality and the different cultures of the human race is only a witness to this. The different dimensions of God can only be experienced richly in the different cultures. No single culture has it all. Likewise no single culture has way too little either. Culture is deep rooted and is passed on from generation to generation. Every generation only adds to its riches. When a culture comes alive, it is the experiences of generations at the forefront. Decades of collective emotions are at our disposal when we celebrate a culture. This is why nobody that disrespects anybody’s culture just walks away. This is like walking straight on somebody’s rich heritage unscathed.
Worship is Vibrant
Every identity: be it National, Regional, Cultural and Ethnic springs from the Divine. God has meticulously planned long ago where each one of us should be born, at what time in history and the place where we would be brought up and in which family we would be nurtured. Although at certain times it may look like a mistake, the plan of God always at first is misunderstood before gradually making perfect sense. We all should celebrate our own culture without demeaning the others. No culture is superior to another. Old doesn’t always mean gold. Almost every culture has a long ancestral lineage. The most important thing is to celebrate God within our cultures. It is not the culture that takes the driver’s seat, above all, it is God within that culture Who is to be honoured. We all belong to different countries and different states within that country. Does this really look like a mistake? No, it seems well programmed. “Increase, multiply, and replenish” seem to resonate and resound within every culture. Every tongue, every tribe, every people, and every land will honor Jesus as the King and worship Him, is a promise that is slowly being fulfilled. The Scripture clearly defines this cultural extravaganza. Revelation 7:9 firmly confirms this. Acts 17:26 says, “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.” (NIV)
God in Culture
God in human form was born specifically into a culture. Jesus was a Jew. He celebrated God and His glory within the Jewish culture. Jesus was never a Christian, He was a Jew. He identified Himself as a Jew wherever He went and enjoyed His Jewish ancestry, without diminishing the rest. Jesus did not propogate His Jewish ethnicity. He proclaimed the Kingdom of God and its productivity. Kingdom truths manifests freely in all cultures without favouritism. Cultures are flavours to be enjoyed and engaged. We through the love of God can appreciate and commend God in every culture.
Concluding Remarks
No man is an island. Everyone is made to be born into a specific culture for a specific purpose. Let us enjoy our culture and the very many cultural diversity around us. We have to take pains to learn and understand our fellow human beings’ culture as well. The better we understand, the better we can see God glorified in and through that particular culture. God’s Kingdom also has a culture. We automatically will be part of the Kingdom culture when we love and appreciate our fellow human beings and their rich culture!
*********
Acknowledgement
Judson J
0 Comments