By Andrea Guachalla
I attended church most of my childhood and teen years. Not voluntarily, really, for all those years I wasn’t even a Christian. It was my parents (especially my mother) who had the habit of attending church every single Sunday, and it was my father who took me and my sister to a very wide array of church denominations throughout the years.
Oh! What kind of church did I not attend?
Pentecostal, charismatic, prosperity, Anglican, catholic… You name it! I’ve been there. And along with attending Sunday services in all those churches, I also got the chance to attend many – like… MANY – Sunday schools and youth groups.
One thing I noted in all of them: there was a separate time for games and a separate time for Bible talk.
A few weeks ago, while I was spending some time with people from my church, I was reminded of the experience of having a separate time for spiritual stuff, and another one for fun stuff and unconsciously asked myself if we, at that exact moment of hanging out among young adult Christians, would also have a time for Bible talk, and a time to chat about “other” stuff. Would we also take a short time to discuss things about the Word, and then put our Bibles aside and play some random, senseless games not caring at all about applying what we just learned?
The remembrance of all those years of attending churches where the Word of God was completely disconnected from everything else, from the way one has fun, and the way one lives, from the way one talks and the way one treats others, forced me to ask:
Where does the spiritual realm finish, and does the physical one start?
And then, before I could begin to explain why I had the answer:
EVERYTHING IS SPIRITUAL
There is no limit between the physical world and the spiritual one. We live in a world created by God, a spiritual being who created us spiritual beings too in a physical world. There is no such thing as a time to have fun and a separate one to discuss the Bible or a time to praise God, and another one to work. There is no worshiping God only on Sundays or practicing our faith only to impress other Christians when they are around.
Everything is spiritual. Every place, every time period, every person, and every part of our lives. We are not spiritual beings when we enter a church, and then stop being one when we step out of its doors. We are not supposed to attend Bible studies and then, once the message is finished, stop reflecting on what the Word of God means and how it applies to our lives.
If God has brought us to a saving faith in Jesus, His Son, the Gospel WILL impact every single part of our lives. The Gospel will deeply affect the way we think, the way we talk, the way we treat others, the way we offer advice, the way we spend time with our families, the way we worship, the way we understand the Bible, the way we serve in the church, and yes… even things you might think are not related: the Gospel will have an impact on the way we vote in presidential elections, the way we decide what to have for lunch, the way we play table games with our friends from church, the way we analyze the news we see every day on TV, and the movies we decide to watch or not.
Why? The Bible says so:
So, whether you eat or drink,
1 Corinthians 10:31, English Standard Version
or whatever you do,
do all to the glory of God.
I am, by the grace of God, lucky that for several years already after my conversion I get to sit under the teaching of faithful preachers in my local church who show me with the Scriptures, how is it that the Word of God has an impact on EVERYTHING, and that it was revealed to us so we can apply it in our lives to glorify Him, and be of service to others. No words can express my thankfulness. But I look back and am reminded that there are still so many churches and “churches” where the Gospel has no impact, no power, and no Christ, where the Word of God is reduced to a simple book from which preachers get ideas of how to entertain church attendants with their shallow life experiences…
Don’t they see that everything is spiritual and that they will face a harsher punishment for their unfaithful, deceiving, and/or heretical teachings? Maybe they are blind to the shallow doctrine they preach. Maybe some of them are satan workers who are here to deceive.
The bare thought should lead us to pray earnestly that the Lord may build more faithful churches, and provide more preachers who know every single one of their actions should be guided by their knowledge of Christ, through God’s wisdom. May the Lord lead us to churches like that, where our fellow Christians and pastors encourage us to see everything from a biblical worldview and exhort us when we dare disconnect anything from the glorious Gospel we were given through Christ, may He make you and me Christians who rejoice in the Lord, and who seek to apply what we learn from our pastors and from reading His word daily.
And if you, brother or sister, attend a church where the Gospel is not preached and is not applied, may you seek God’s wisdom to decide whether you will or will not continue attending a church that dares reduce what the Word of God is, and what Christ has done, may you understand that everything is spiritual, and may that lead you to glorify God with every single thing you do.
