I just drove back from Michigan... 12 hours of rain, snow and wind. I had to stop and get an extra bottle of windshield wash. I wish I had paid for the Rain-X at the car wash. You know, that stuff that makes things not stick to your windshield. Do you suppose Someone has paid for Rain-X for you :) I wrote this a long time ago but it seems appropriate to where we are going with "New Stuff" at Grace Life.
Feeling dirty? Does if feel like everything sticks and you can't wash it off? Maybe it's a lie? Please let me know your thoughts after you read.
sec·u·lar - not pertaining to or connected with religion (opposed to sacred): secular music.
sa·cred -devoted or dedicated to a deity or to some religiouspurpose; consecrated.
Religion throughout time has separated the sacred from the secular. We ride past beautiful church buildings and we think of them as holy, sacred places. Then we drive to our places of work and we see them as secular (worldly, material), of no sacred value. When we get to work we see our jobs as secular, somehow less than those who are in ministry because if you are in ministry you have a “sacred” vocation. We sing what we refer to as “sacred” songs, holy music on Sunday morning then we get into our cars and turn on our country/rock/jazz/hip hop music station (yep, I have found some hip hop I like) and we call that secular music. We have Christian colleges and secular universities. This secular and sacred division in our paradigms…is a lie.
We are taught that if we send our kids to Christian schools, make sure we go to church, let them only listen to Christian music then they will be safe because everything else is “unsafe”. But maybe the “sacred box” is really the dangerous one. This is the case, if our faith is found in a “safe sacred box” instead of an “unsafe Savior”. Where did this sacred/secular paradigm come from?
Much of the Old Testament could be read to imply that the secular was unsafe. In the Old Testament if you touched something that was unclean you became unclean. You were what you did, what you ate, who you associated with. In the Bible we see the starkest example of this in those afflicted with Leprosy. Where ever a leper traveled, he or she would have to call out, UNCLEAN…UNCLEAN.
When He had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him. And behold, a leper came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. Matthew 8:1-3
Can you imagine the feeling of touch to a man or woman who hasn’t been close to a “clean” human in years? Jesus touched the leper. He didn’t have to touch him to heal him. Jesus intentionally touched him. Did Jesus become unclean? Jesus was born under the law, why would He have not become unclean? Jesus didn’t become unclean because His cleanness came from the inside out.
In Christ, we discover that cleanness on the inside trumps dirt on the outside. We don’t become clean because we walk into a sacred building, or eat sacred food, or go to a sacred school nor are we dirty because we associate with what appears to be dirty.
No longer do we have to live in fear of what we touch because we carry our Sacredness with us wherever we go. It is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We are called and anointed to get dirty in this world in the midst of touching those which the wisdom of this world would consider to be unclean. This secular dirt can’t stick to you because you are holy/sacred from the inside out. Just like Jesus and just because of Jesus. Pretty amazing!
Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:11 (I love this verse)
