One that came to me early on was a deeper understanding of sacrifice and incarnation. I traveled with three other team members, all of whom deal far more with the personal/relational aspect of the world and think using feelings. If you are not familiar with the Meyers Briggs personality test, suffice it to say that one of the things it measures is thinking versus feelings. Feelers deal with, value, and make decisions based on humans. Thinkers are more material, logical, cold, linear. I'm an 88% thinker. This means that 15/16ths of me has nothing to do with the human world. You can understand, as a result it was hard to relate to or minister to three people who primarily care about relationships. It was also difficult to appreciate their struggles, decisions, or values. I could have sat distant from them, letting them do their own thing. But by the grace of God and by things he had been showing me for the past several weeks, it occurred to me that Christ was in much the same position. See, God is not at all like us humans. He doesn't have to concern himself with our affairs. He would be quite just in ignoring us. But he didn't do that, he took on flesh and came down to our level, sacrificing his time, energy, identity, and life for us. He became something he wasn't and concerned himself with things not of his nature - lies, confusion, temptation, and imperfection.
In the same way, I had to learn to operate in something I wasn't - more of a feeling mode. I had to intentionally step into the world of my teammates in order to understand, appreciate, and help them. Just as Jesus was man since the beginning of the world, so I have always had at least a small capacity to feel, however, it's a dimension of myself that I do not exercise frequently. Jesus is slightly different, for he is totally God and totally man always at the same time, but the application is pretty solid.
So yeah. Really sacrifice and live for and in other people.
Philippians 2:5-8
"5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature[a] 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[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!"
So yeah. Really sacrifice and live for and in other people.
Philippians 2:5-8
"5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature[a] 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[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!"
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