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A Publication of RenewaNation: Helping Children Develop a Biblical Worldview.

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Friday, November 7, 2014

God's Work In God's World


It's one thing to say we must rid ourselves of the "Sacred-Secular Divide," but it's another thing to actually do it. For most of us, it requires a major shift in thinking. As mentioned before, seeing our daily work as God's work begins in the head.

In short, the Sacred-Secular Divide looks like this:


The "sacred” things include Sunday morning worship, Bible study, prayer, and going on mission trips. These activities are thought to have real significance, because they deal with matters of the soul, related to spiritual, eternal concerns.

"Secular” things, on the other hand, don’t have as much significance, being related to the physical, temporal realm. Things like mowing the lawn, managing a bank, or cucumber farming fall into this category. They simply are not as important to God. They are “things of earth” that should "grow strangely dim" as we "turn our eyes upon Jesus."

Here is what to do with that way of thinking:


The fact is, both things in heaven and things on earth are Jesus' things. And when we turn our eyes upon Him, it all grows remarkably clear. [Would someone please write a song to that effect?]

The problem is, things on earth are broken, due to sin, and in need of restoration. The answer, however, is not to divorce ourselves from the earth-things [they are still God's things], but to engage with them in a reconciling way, as the Spirit enables us.

Try this view on for size:


In this way of thinking, any sphere of human activity may be done in harmony with God or in conflict with Him; in alignment with Him, or in opposition to Him, to one degree or another. Christ died to reconcile people and things to Him, so that "in all things He may have the preeminence," both things in heaven and things on earth. See Colossians 1:15-20.

This includes business things, legal things, artistic things and civil things. No earthly "thing" lies outside the realm of Christ's authority and redemption. He is as relevant to what goes on in medicine as He is to what goes on in church. He is as relevant to things in the temporal world as to things in the eternal world. And when we engage with God's things in God's way, by God's grace, we are doing God's work in God's world.

Again, it starts in our head.




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