Tuesday, November 22, 2022

 

Tuesday, November 22, 2022


Psalm 51

Zechariah 14:12-21

Revelation 11:15-19


And the cooking pots in the house of the LORD shall be as holy as the bowls in front of the altar.


Francis Schaeffer does a good job in Escape from Reason in highlighting the fact that we have seemed to separate the sacred from the secular. One example is in politics, where politicians are expected to drop their religious beliefs once they enter Parliament and begin debating legislation, because they have entered a secular space. Pointing this out makes it sound absurd; but does it perhaps happen in our private lives as well?


A good personal test would be to look at something completely mundane. Take, for example, our motivation to brush our teeth. Yes, it is a good habit to cultivate. Yes, it has positive results. Yes, it is common sense. But is the fundamental reason we brush our teeth because it is something that belongs to the secular world, or because God loves us, wants us to be happy, and we are spiritual beings living sacred lives?


Remember earlier in Revelation how the opening of the seals on the scroll was like a spiritual history of creation? Did you notice that the angels and trumpets that we have just moved through described exactly the same thing? In both histories, we end with the triumph of Jesus as Lord of all. The loud voices in heaven usher in the new age of Jesus, proclaiming that the kingdom of the world (that is, the devil and our secular inclinations) has ended and has now become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Messiah. And earlier we noticed that when the Bible talks about the end times, it is rather ambiguous as to whether these promises are only for the last day, or that they begin to apply to us in the here and now.


There is no separation between the sacred and the secular; the spiritual and the physical. Anyone who argues differently is in denial, or rebellion, or both. We are spiritual beings enfleshed in the material universe, and everything we think, say and touch is sacred. The chalice on the altar, from which we drink the consecrated wine every Sunday is holy; so is the mug from which we drink a cup of morning tea, or the glass tumbler that holds our cold drink on a Friday afternoon. Brushing our teeth, combing our hair, sweeping the floor, walking the dog, watching television: everything is bound up in the world that God has made for us and that God has not left. The world that God came into in human form, died for, and redeemed. No work is worthless, no time is wasted. All belongs to our holy God, and all is holy, if we would but treat it as such.




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