Is what this world made of bad, and only what is of heaven good?
There is much confusion about the
seemingly distinction between the physical and the spiritual. Is it not it true
that the physical blood of Christ purchased our spiritual redemption? So, is
there really a distinction between the two? Current Christian thinking has a
far to Gnostic approach to the Kingdom of Heaven, then what is taught by Jesus,
Paul, Peter, James, and the other writers of the New Testament collection.
People do not seem to grasp the fact
that God our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all
wickedness, and by our trust in his resurrection as our complete rebirth is complete.
We now live a life in the body through faith in the Son of God who loved us and
gave himself for us. The life we live now while working out this salvation is
by Jesus to increase his fame. To pray to God and say, I know I am nothing and
have nothing good to bring you, except by your grace is not a continual prayer
for someone who is not now nothing but has been made to be a “son of God” or
heir to the Kingdom of Heaven.
There almost seems to be a Deistic
flavor to this Gnostic interpretation of the Kingdom as well. Heaven is some
other realm where the Father dwells and is beyond our reach. However Jesus said
the Kingdom of heaven is near. We are read also that the return of Christ is
near. Neither of these usages of “near” has anything to do with time, but
space. The Kingdom and the return of Christ are close, right next to us.
James taught that true and pure
religion is this: to look after widows and orphans. In other words to do something
actual and physical for people is the true spirituality. To say to someone I’ll
pray for you, or do you want to talk, is well and good, but if that is all we
ever do, is there any action to our faith? Is our faith working out our
salvation by interacting in a physical world with eagerness to do good?
It is by the physical blood and
body of Christ that we are who we are now, a people of the Anointed One. To separate
the laws of physics, biology, chemistry and the like from what is “spiritual”
is not only a non-ancient Jewish thought, but a non-Christian ideology as well!
Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, which means to love God
by every facet and fiber of your being, down to the very cellular fusions and
bioelectric impulses.
There is no sacred and secular to a
Christian, for by our connection with God all we do is done in the presence of
the All Mighty! Live accordingly.
