God (Christianity) -- Worship and love; Spirituality
This is the old sacred-secular antithesis. Most Christians are caught in
its trap. They cannot get a satisfactory adjustment between the claims
of the two worlds. They try to walk the tight rope between two kingdoms
and they find no peace in either. Their strength is reduced, their
outlook confused and their joy taken from them.
I believe this state of affairs to be wholly unnecessary. We have gotten
ourselves on the horns of a dilemma, true enough, but the dilemma is not
real. It is a creature of misunderstanding. The sacred-secular
antithesis has no foundation in the New Testament. Without doubt a more
perfect understanding of Christian truth will deliver us from it.
The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is our perfect example, and He knew no
divided life. In the Presence of His Father He lived on earth without
strain from babyhood to His death on the cross. God accepted the
offering of His total life, and made no distinction between act and act.
"I do always the things that please him," was His brief summary of His
own life as it related to the Father. As He moved among men He was
poised and restful. What pressure and suffering He endured grew out of
His position as the world's sin bearer; they were never the result of
moral uncertainty or spiritual maladjustment.
Paul's exhortation to "do all to the glory of God" is more than pious
idealism. It is an integral part of the sacred revelation and is to be
accepted as the very Word of Truth. It opens before us the possibility
of making every act of our lives contribute to the glory of God. Lest we
should be too timid to include everything, Paul mentions specifically
eating and drinking. This humble privilege we share with the beasts that
perish. If these lowly animal acts can be so performed as to honor God,
then it becomes difficult to conceive of one that cannot.
That monkish hatred of the body which figures so prominently in the
works of certain early devotional writers is wholly without support in
the Word of God. Common modesty is found in the Sacred Scriptures, it is
true, but never prudery or a false sense of shame. The New Testament
accepts as a matter of course that in His incarnation our Lord took upon
Him a real human body, and no effort is made to steer around the
downright implications of such a fact. He lived in that body here among
men and never once performed a non-sacred act. His presence in human
flesh sweeps away forever the evil notion that there is about the human
body something innately offensive to the Deity. God created our bodies,
and we do not offend Him by placing the responsibility where it
belongs. He is not ashamed of the work of His own hands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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