In the last post I mentioned I would give examples of what walking in the culture of the kingdom actually can look like.
Example 1:
Sarah and I don’t often go to the riverfront, but one day we were doing a prayer walk. The riverfront in Phnom Penh is filled with a vast variety of people. On any given day you will have, European, American, Korean, or whatever nationality of tourists walking around with maps. You have your everyday Khmer people doing group exercising to techno music. You have people selling soft drinks or lotus flowers (the seeds are quite good to eat). You also have those who live there. Not those who just live in Phnom Penh, those who live behind the trash can you just walked by. Many kids are there, with some one watching them (trafficked children), asking for money, or trying to pic-pocket you. There are older folks as well asking for money. Many have a bag of glue in their pockets so they can get high. It’s nearly impossibly to distinguish who is trying to scam you, or who is being coerced into this themselves just to hand over their begging money to their trafficker. You can imagine the dilemma.
There was this one lady, who was different. Nothing distinguished her from the rest, except one thing. We just knew we needed to talk to this lady. After talking in our broken Khmer, and the help of another person who eventually came over who knew some english, we sat down with them, and gave them some food. The lady was with her little boy getting medicine in the big city. They are both HIV positive. She is from the Prey Veang province. By the end of our conversation, they asked us if they could come to church with us. They never asked for anything, not food, not money, just if they could go with us to church. God did some work, and provided for some of their needs through us. She went back home, but we pray we can connect with this lady again. The other guy (who translated some for us) still sniffs glue by the riverfront, but we have gotten a chance to connect with him again. We are hoping and praying he comes to follow Jesus.
My point here is that in this moment, even though communication was broken, and cultural obstacles were still there, God elevated us onto the level of the culture of His kingdom. Something within our spirit spoke to their spirits. In that moment, we didn’t try to read Khmer body language, but we saw into the realm of the Spirit, and they began to identify with the culture that they were actually designed for–the culture of God.
Example 2:
We had a short term trip come from the States through Adventures. Our time with them was great. By the end of the trip we joined them in going to Siem Reap. With us, came three men, all Khmer, one is a Christian (named Vandon), speaks english, the other two are not and do not speak english. The whole time we interacted with them, but the team could not speak with them directly, only Sarah and I here and there, but still in very broken communication. Vandon would of course have conversations with them. By the end of the trip we were taking a boat out to see a floating village. Before getting into the boats I remember telling Vandon, “I think God might be stirring something within him.” In the Spirit, I could sense there was something deeper going on. Sure enough, as we were returning from the floating village, one of the men asked Vandon about Jesus. He was itching to hear why the team came, and why we were different. As the leader of the team, Connie, talked with him through Vandon translating, the other man said he too wants to follow Jesus!
There was no way for me to know what we going on with these men in the natural, but in the culture of the Spirit of God, I could see it. These men also, did not understand our language, and what we were saying during the trip. They might have seen body language, and other things, but I am convinced that these two Khmer men realized that this team of people walked in a world, a culture, that they were designed for.
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There is communication always going on in the culture of the kingdom. We have been dulled though to think that what we see in the natural world is all there is.
2 Corinthians 5 says, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh.”
In John 3:1-15 Nicodemus was so perplexed when Jesus told him that he needed to be re-born of the Spirit. Jesus was teaching a culture of the kingdom principle. Nicodemus was drawn to what Jesus was saying, even though it did not make sense to his natural mind.
To see this for your self in God’s word see, 2 Corinthians 5, Romans 8:3-14, John 3 & 4, Hebrews 11, Genesis 41:38-39, John 16:13, there are many more too!
Know this, whether you are in a foreign culture, or your own culture, there is another culture at work. It is not always visible in the natural, but in the Spirit it is evident. Even those who do not have the Holy Spirit within them and do not follow Jesus can see it. The kingdom of the culture of God is always working, moving and breaking into this world.
