LIVING IN TWO WORLDS

                There are many ways in which we live in two worlds. We live in the our internal world; the world of our mind and thoughts. And we live in our external world; the world we share with everyone around us. We live in our public world of work, school activities, community involvement and church. We also live in our private world of home and family. Sometimes our two worlds intersect. Most of the time we keep them very separate.

                There is another set of worlds that many of us live in. We can define these as the world of the mundane and the world of the religious, or the secular world and the spiritual world. Whether we are committed followers of Jesus Christ, occasional attendees at church, or spiritual seekers, we all have to come to grips with these two worlds.

                Like many of the other worlds that we live in, we tend to keep these two worlds separate. We unconsciously divide our lives into sacred and secular. Although the two may intersect from time to time, they tend to run on parallel tracks. When we are in one world, we do not think about the other. We rarely see the two worlds as significantly overlapping.

                We have come up with the idea of these two worlds from different sources. In America, the idea of the “separation of Church and State” has profoundly affected the way we live out our lives. We have been told that faith is a “private matter” that should be kept private and not introduced into normal, daily discourse. It is OK for a person to explore the spiritual world, as long as they do it on their own and don’t “impose it” on others.

                In addition to culture, there are passages in the Bible that seem to draw a line between the sacred and the secular. The “world” is often used as a symbol of that which is sinful. We can get the impression that we should insulate ourselves from the “World.” Passages like John 17:15-16 can be interpreted as creating a strict divide between the sacred and the secular. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. This has led to a fortress mentality among many Christians, who seek to isolate themselves from “the World” as much as possible. But if we take an honest, hard look at the Bible, we will discover is that God does not want us to live in two worlds.

                All of life is sacred to God and it should be to us as well. God wants us to live integrated lives where the mundane and the religious regularly overlap, where the divide between sacred and secular is affectively blurred. In fact, God wants us to use every aspect of our lives to glorify Him and to shine the light of His gospel into our dark world.

                Jesus made this clear in Matthew 5:14-16. "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Jesus does not want us to hide our faith or divorce it from our daily lives. Instead He commands us to let our faith shine into every corner of our daily lives.

                One of my many favorite passages in Scripture is found in Colossians 3:17. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. I was profoundly struck by this verse several years ago, in of all places, my workshop. Paul said “whatever you do.” I was struck that that really leaves nothing out. I began by asking, how can I honor God by what I do in my workshop? This led me to think more broadly. What does it mean for me to live my life under the authority of Christ; in His name?

                One of the struggles that we all face is that we too easily separate our physical being from our spiritual being. We see the physical as mundane and secular and the non-physical as sacred and spiritual. The Bible makes it clear that there is no distinction between these two in God’s economy. Jesus is the Lord over my mind and my body. What I do with my physical body matters as much to God as what I think with my mind. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

                It is a part of our human nature to compartmentalize our lives. We have become accustomed to separating our lives into neat categories. As we move from one to the other, we, so to speak, shut one door and open another. God wants us to live integrated lives. He wants us to take the hinges off of the doors so that there is a free flow between what we think of as sacred and secular. Our everyday lives are to be an active, vibrant testimony of God’s love and grace.

1 Peter 2:12

Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.