Significant Pursuit by Renaissance Guy

     We often divide everything into the categories of sacred and secular.  Music, calendar items, places, and events all go into one of those boxes or the other. 

     We consider a church building a sacred building and a movie theater, a secular one.  For many of us,  Sunday is a sacred day, but the other six days are secular.  “Amazing Grace” is a sacred song; “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” is a secular song.

     The only problem is that the Bible doesn’t teach Christians to divide everything that way:

• “. . .whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.”  Colossians 3:17
• “Whether, then, you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”  I Corinthians 10:31

     We are to do everything we do in the name of Jesus and to the glory of God, which would include those things that we call secular, as well as the things that we call sacred.  Looking at life that way, a mother’s act of cooking a meal for her family on Saturday can be just as sacred as her attending a worship service on Sunday.  In fact, cooking for the family might be more sacred than attending a worship service, if the act of cooking is done in love and for God’s glory while the act of attending worship is done grudgingly or for self-promotion.

     This idea has several implications:

1. Members of the clergy are not more “holy” than laypeople. 
2. Every job, if it is not inherently sinful, is a  calling–not just professional ministry.
3. We should worship God out of church as well as in church.
4. We should strive to be as godly on Monday as we are on Sunday.
5. We should do everything we do to the best of our ability, because we are doing it to bring honor to God.
6. We should not do anything that cannot bring honor to God.
7. Every aspect of our lives–our work habits, our political activities, our interactions with our neighbors, our choice of reading material, our spending, etc.–should be influenced by our desire to honor God.

     Some of Christianity’s detractors want to keep the distinction between the sacred and the secular clear and strong.  They tell us that we can pray at church or at home, but not in public.  They tell us that we should not bring our faith into the political arena.  They do not want us to let our faith guide what we think about how the government should spend our money or what students should learn in school.

     Unfortunately we do not have the option of ignoring what we believe.  In fact, how can we say we believe it, if it doesn’t actually mean something to us?