Why Sex? How Do We Have Sex?

Some people think utopia is a place where sex is meaningless.

A group of lawmakers, judges, lawyers and educators in America, Britain, Canada, and elsewhere want to engineer a golden age of tolerance and understanding. They seek a society where everyone is accepted, where no one is condemned, where everyone feels emotionally validated, where no one’s feelings are ever hurt.

That might sound like a noble dream – but their version of it is a nightmare.

It is a world where the line between male and female doesn’t exist. Where not only is it just as common to be homosexual or bisexual as heterosexual, but every person has the choice – with society’s full unflinching support – to act, dress or even biologically exist as either male or female, or anything in between. Where a school teacher, police officer, priest or president can be a man who likes wearing dresses and high heels, and anyone who expresses discomfort over the idea can be silenced with the full force of the law.

This utopian world removes pressure on singles to marry, pressure on married people to remain together, pressure on parents to make sacrifices for their children, and pressure on children to view their parents as authorities. In other words, it undermines the pillars of family life.

Proponents of this vision overlook, ignore, dismiss and ridicule any evidence that exposes the flaws in their thinking. And there are mountains of evidence. Evidence showing biological, emotional and mental differences between men and women. Evidence showing the benefits of traditional marriage to both husband and wife, as well as society at large – and the high costs associated with its dissolution. Evidence showing the enormous advantages to children – in personal safety, academic performance, financial well-being, emotional stability, self-respect, and assimilation into law-abiding adult life, among other things – of growing up under the same roof with both biological parents, a living arrangement built upon a strong, stable relationship between a sperm-producing adult male and an egg-producing adult female.

Nevertheless, the reality-challenged individuals who refuse to acknowledge this evidence sit in some of the most powerful offices in Western civilization.

Such is the state of our society after decades of determined chipping away at the foundation of traditional family. Views that once inhabited the shadowy fringes are stomping their way into courtrooms and legislative chambers. Bit by bit, activist leaders are codifying their twisted vision into reality, aggressively introducing new laws and filling the judicial record with new precedent, giving them the legal power to stamp out dissent.

These relentless efforts in a drive over the past half century in particular to equalize the sexes have completely obscured an important question.

WHY are people male and female?

Have you ever thought about that?

It is a conundrum that both creationists and evolutionists must wrestle with. For the person who doesn’t believe in a Creator, it requires explaining how, by natural means – by accident and not by design – humanity (and so many other living creatures) came to exist in two distinct groups, different yet the same, mutually dependent upon the other for procreation. But even for the creationist, the question can be equally puzzling. Why did God make male and female?

Can those who push homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderism on the public ever acknowledge the possibility that sex is not an accident of evolution, nor an arbitrary ornament on creation, but a conscious, deliberate choice with design and intent made by a super-intelligent Creator? Is it possible many have allowed their mind to be prejudiced against His superior thinking by simple peer pressure – the intellectual bullying of a society that is in so many ways hostile toward its Creator?

Let’s consider homosexuality. There are two schools of thought concerning its origin. First, the homosexual tendency is there from birth by congenital inheritance in the genes – for that person it is normal. Or second, the homosexual tendency is acquired in life by circumstances and situations – for that person it is abnormal. In other words, is homosexuality a sin or a sickness?

The Bible is clear about the practice of homosexuality. It IS a sin. But it is just like other sins – no more, no less. I believe the best working definition of sin is: any thought, word or deed attempted independently from God and His guidance.

Whether we want to accept it or not, we come into this world with the nature of Satan because of the Fall of our first parents: “You are of your father, the devil, and his lusts you will do” (John 8:44). This nature is a nature of independence. We want to do things on our own using our own judgments.

If we canonize homosexuality as a sickness, then we must similarly address all other biblically defined sins such as lying, stealing, gluttony, envy, pride, adultery, and even murder. The end of this exercise in self-pity and self-justification will be the conclusion that we are all victims, we are all sick, but we are not sinners. Following this line of reasoning, we will conclude that we are all “okay” or “normal” – we don’t need a Savior; at best we need a little treatment.

Such a conclusion is not only unbiblical, it is also illogical and an act of denial.

As with all sin, homosexuality can only be overcome with a change of natures – and that is just what accepting Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord accomplishes. We are born again with a new nature of God by Christ coming to live right within us. At our new birth begins a gradual transformation of the mind to begin removing sinful reasoning from our minds. It is slow. It is a gradual process. But it works, because God promises us that it will work. In the case of homosexuality, feelings for the same sex rather than the opposite sex may not be transformed but the acts of homosexual sin can be gradually removed by the power of the indwelling Christ.

Unfortunately, many Christians have allowed homosexuality to be characterized as the worst sin, and to condemn, stereotype, and even speak maliciously of those who struggle with this particular sin of the flesh. There are many sins of the flesh but somehow liars and gluttons don’t receive the same vilification from many churches and individual Christians. The wisdom of the old adage of “hating the sin but loving the sinner” is often preached but not followed.

We are encouraged to pray for persecuted Christians in such places as China, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia. But we should not forget to pray for those Christians who have a real and meaningful relationship with God, but who struggle with homosexuality that they may refuse to act out the behavior just as Christ teaches them to refuse to act out all sinful behavior.

And those with relatives, friends and acquaintances deeply involved in homosexuality should pray for God to somehow get through to them that their only hope is a change of nature by choosing Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

It seems that God used sexual union – the ultimate physical togetherness of the binding of the sexual organs – as an example of a born again Christian’s union with the indwelling Christ – the ultimate spiritual togetherness!

If humans had asexual reproduction like many other creature species, it would only reinforce the concept of independence which seems to be so “natural” in people anyway. There is dependence in many forms within the human family organization which can show us the way to what our heavenly Father has in mind for us as His children – trust in and dependence on our “Dad” through the indwelling Christ the Son.

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The Trinity - Just a Doctrine?

Ask ten average Christians in ten average churches to explain the doctrine of the Trinity, and you’ll probably get ten different explanations. Most Christians “accept” the Trinity as orthodox Christian doctrine. But they would be at a loss to explain why the doctrine matters or how it affects their Christian lives.

On the one hand, the doctrine of the Trinity is supposed to be the center of faith. On the other hand, one could dispense with the doctrine of the Trinity as false and the major part of religious literature could well remain virtually unaffected.

And no wonder. The doctrine is hard to understand, and most discussions about it are…well…kind of boring. For the average Christian, the kind of people who have families to feed, jobs to get to, and lives to live, what difference does an ancient doctrine make anyway? God is God, isn’t He? Isn’t that enough? If He happens to be Father, Son and Spirit instead of just Father, well, fine, but that doesn’t really change anything from our end, does it?

Actually, it does matter. It matters a lot – which is exactly what you’d expect me to say since, after all, why else would I be writing an article about an ancient, kind of boring doctrine?

First, let’s dispense with going through all the biblical proof that the doctrine is correct. You can find that elsewhere. Instead, let’s spend some time talking about why the doctrine of the Trinity matters, and especially why it matters to you.

Let’s start by taking a look at the common idea that God is a single, solitary being “out there” somewhere, looking down on Earth, watching us, judging us. Bette Midler put it to music in the chorus to her tune “From a Distance” with the lyrics, “And God is watching us, God is watching us, God is watching us from a distance.”

This God comes in three main flavors: first, vanilla, the one who just kind of wound up the universe and then stretched out in the heavenly gazebo for a few-billion year nap. (Who knows, maybe He wakes up once in a while and does something nice, kind of like the part George Burns portrayed in the film “Oh God”).

Second, red hot cinnamon, the one who keeps careful tabs on everything everybody does, and since everybody blows it now and then, He gets madder and madder. His worshippers say He takes joy in watching people who offend Him slowly roast but never quite get done.

Third is apricot, the one who might or might not like you depending on many things, none of which are all that clear to anybody. He’s the one that the St. Louis Rams fans pray to for touchdowns.

Sometimes this God comes in an alternate flavor, water. You might think water isn’t a flavor. The variety of colors is endless, but it always tastes watery. This God is more of an abstract principle than a supreme being, kind of a “spirit of everything” that you can try to get in touch with if you empty your head of all thoughts and sit still long enough without going to sleep.

The God of the Bible is not like any of these descriptions. The God of the Bible is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These three divine Persons share perfect love, joy unity peace, and fellowship. And the reason that’s important to know is that when the Bible talks about us being “in Christ” it means that we get to take part in that divine kind of life by being born again with a new divine nature because Jesus has come to live right within us. Just as Christ is the beloved of the Father, so are we too, because Christ is in a living union with us.

That means that you are included in the household of God. It means you’re not an outsider or a stranger. You’re not even a respected guest. You’re one of the kids with free run of the house, the grounds, and the fridge.

The trouble is, you probably have a hard time believing that. You know that you do @#$%&* things. You know even if Christ lives in your human spirit, your soul has so much junk left to clean out that you think God doesn’t like you. How could He, you figure. You don’t even like yourself. So based on your assessment of your “goodness/badness” ratio, you determine that God is more than likely mad at you and FAR more than likely mad at all those other @#$%&* types you meet in traffic every day.

But the whole point of God letting us know through the Scriptures that He is Father, Son and Spirit, and not just “God out there somewhere,” is so we’d know He really does love us and we really are on the ins with Him. The Son of God now lives in every true Christian. And as one of us, but still God, only God in the flesh now, He dragged this whole ragged army called the “Church – the Body of Christ” home to the Father right through the front door.

No, we didn’t deserve it and no, we didn’t earn it. We didn’t even ask for it. But He did it anyway, because that’s the exact reason He made us in the first place – so He could share with us the life He has shared eternally with the Father and the Spirit. That’s why He tells us He made us in His image (Genesis 1:26).

Salvation isn’t about a change of location, floating off to some secret set of coordinates in the Delta Quadrant called heaven, as if that would solve all our problems. And it’s not about a new super government patrolled by angelic cops who never miss an infraction of the divine penal code.

Salvation is about getting rebirthed into God’s family and learning how to live in it. And the Trinity is at the heart of it. The Father (Let’s get technical – the First Person of the Godhead) loves us so much in spite of our screw-ups, that he sent the Son (the Second Person of the Godhead) to live in our human spirit and direct and empower us, and He sent the Spirit to live in our souls and teach us how to trust Christ so that we can live in God’s family and enjoy it like we were created to do instead of being screw-ups forever.

In other words, the God of the Bible is not three separate Gods, where one, the temper challenged, unpredictable Father, is so furious at humans that He just has to kill somebody in order to calm down, so the sweet, loving Son, seeing Dad about to lose it, steps up and says, “Okay, if you’ve got to kill someone, then kill me, but spare these people.”

The doctrine of the Trinity is important precisely because it keeps us from seeing God in such a ridiculous way, and yet, that is how a whole lot of people DO see God. And they wind up with all kinds of messed up, funky and scary ideas about who God is and what He might be cooking up to do to them some day.

Jesus said, “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” When we think of God in any other way than the way He revealed Himself in the Bible – as the Father, Son and Spirit who created us and redeemed us and have made us to share their joy through our living union with Jesus Christ – we’re going to find these words of Jesus daunting and discouraging.

That’s why the doctrine of the Trinity matters. Without it, we might as well join the Hittites wondering whether Baal will flood out the crops with storms this year or burn them out with lightning. In Jesus Christ, God has taken up our cause as His own. We have been birthed as children of the Father, brothers and sisters of our older Brother and full members of the household of God.

With Paul, we can only say, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!”

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Reactions To Temptation

Everyone is tempted. If we are alive, we are tempted. If we have a body, we will be tempted through it. If we have a mind to think with, there is temptation through it.

There are four basic reactions to temptation. Three of them are ineffective and mostly destructive. Only one of the four works to block a temptation to sin, and, wonder of wonder, it is the one reaction recommended by God in His Word.

One: Yield To It

The first reaction of some people to their temptation is to just yield. They calmly lie down, and without regard to character or long-term consequences, they follow the line of least resistance. They respond with a couple of philosophies: “Let us enjoy ourselves today because who can be sure of tomorrow?” or “There’s no use for me to fight this – I never can resist!”

One of my own favorite lines that I used was, “I can resist anything but temptation!” It always got a laugh, to the point that I used it all the time. And, to a certain extent, it became an excuse for wrong behavior.

I used to own a dog that had a real inferior complex. He was a good enough pet with the family, but whenever trouble came along in the form of a strange dog, he had only one reaction every time – he just laid down on his back and cowered with his neck exposed and vulnerable. He just gave up and in effect said, “You’ve got me! Do what you will!” He felt that everyone and every thing around him was stronger than he was, so why fight it, just accept it.

I believe there are a fair number of people in the world who are just like this dog. Their inferiority complex weakens their will to stand up against temptation to sin. They just accept it as inevitable.

And the ones who say, “Live today, for tomorrow we die!” may not project inferiority, but down deep I believe it is often there also. Expecting death and dwelling on its implications is certainly a form of apparent human weakness.

Two: Play With It

Some people play with their temptations. They try to see how close to the flame they can get without getting burned. A person who has a drinking problem will continue to go to a bar to be with his friends. He thinks that this time he will be able to control his drinking. It becomes a game with him.

Or the person who has a problem with gossiping will continue to associate with people who are known gossipers.

Dealing with temptations to sin by making a game out of it and trying to just avoid it by the skin of our teeth does not work. We may make a pretense of fighting, but having thrown that bone to our consciences to be chewed on a bit, we eventually just lie down and relax and give in.

Third: Fight It

The third basic reaction is probably the most common. In fact, many view it as the only proper reaction to temptation. But it is also doomed to failure in the long run. Some people FIGHT their temptations. They recognize and resist them. Sounds like the thing to do, doesn’t it? Do you think that by placing enough obstacles in the way of the things that tempt you, you can keep from doing what you ought not to do? It doesn’t work. Concentrating on obstacles only tends to keep you concentrated on the temptation.

So if fighting the temptation is not the way, then what is?

Fourth: Flee It

God’s way is to FLEE. “Flee also youthful lusts, rather follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with them that CALL ON THE LORD out of a pure heart” (2 Timothy 2:22).

It has been said that few speed records are broken by people running from temptation. And when you flee, don’t leave a forwarding address. So where do we flee?

Sometimes it seems that there is nowhere to run and sin is all around us. Stop right where you are and become INTROSPECTIVE! Flee to that place within yourself where dwells Christ, the Conqueror. You can’t fight temptation in your own power – but you do not contain your OWN POWER! As a Christian who has recognized Jesus as Savior and Lord, you contain Christ who has already overpowered sin in all of its ramifications.

UNLESS WE GO TO THAT WHICH IS WITHIN US, WE WILL SOON YIELD TO THAT WHICH IS AROUND US!

But how do we make instantaneous fleeing to Christ within the thing we desire to do at the very moment of need? There is only one answer to this question. Preparation. In the times of our lives when we are not in the midst of a temptation, we should make preparation. We must develop a living relationship with Christ within with an increasing and ongoing trust in Him to lead us. We must PRE-PROGRAM God into our lives. When we see on TV or read about sinful circumstances, we must picture ourselves instantaneously fleeing to Christ if and when those circumstances overshadow us. Only in this way of preparation will we react in God’s way.

In conclusion, if a person yields quickly, of course he is whipped at the start; he gives the chance of victory away without even a decent showing.

If a person plays with his temptation, as so many do, if he dallies and lingers, if he hangs around the fire poking in it with things flammable, then he is whipped, too. His defeat is sure. He is only treading water before he surely sinks.

If a person fights his temptation by calling on his own strength of mind and body, he will only concentrate on the temptation more and sap what little strength of his own that he has.

The key is to trust in Christ ONLY against the temptation. Every temptation so approached is already defeated. Every temptation is a chance for a victory by Christ. It is a chance to make the tempter know anew that he is defeated.

There is a will of the soul within, and a victorious Friend within the spirit. When we, as Christians, combine these internal elements of soul and spirit, the benefits of our proper reaction to temptation will reach through all eternity.

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Christmas Ornaments

I live alone now since my wife’s death two years ago.

As I decorated my Christmas tree this year, the sight of precious old family ornaments reminded me of an even more precious truth. In and of themselves, our ornaments are not very valuable things. Made of simple materials, many of our tree ornaments are worn with age and show signs of breakage. But as they hang on our tree, our home is brightened year after year!
You see, these objects are special only because of whose they are - ours - and special because of the tree.

Likewise, in and of itself, humanity could rank fairly low in terms of value. Morally fallen, sinful, alienated from God and from each other, man is indeed "broken." But we are actually valuable, because of whose we are, God’s property, and because of the tree - not a Christmas tree, but a wooden cross on which was hung the innocent one called Christ. Jesus personally paid for each individual, and the first installment began at Bethlehem's manger.

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People Like You and Me

As a young Catholic, I never picked up a Bible until my twenties. Catholics use missals and prayerbooks mostly.

I was told that when I started the Bible I should start in the New Testament rather than the Old Testament. I remember the first time I opened Matthew’s gospel. Thinking that it was like any other book, I began at the first page: “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham…”

Although I remembered hearing the names of David and Abraham during my visits to church, I didn’t know much more about those two patriarchs than the fact that they were Jews.

“Abraham became the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah became the father of Perez…”

At this point, I halted and said to myself, “BORING!”

Jechoniah became the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel the father of Ablud…”

I stopped reading. Not only was I clueless about who those people were, I couldn’t even pronounce their names! I closed the book and wondered why anyone wasted their time reading the New Testament.

Today, more than five decades later, and having read the old and New Testaments many times, I have a different opinion. If I could go back in time and talk to myself before I closed that BORING book, I’d tell myself that list of nearly unpronounceable names is not as mind-numbing as it seemed. Instead, it has the power to encourage the most discouraged among us.

The genealogy of Jesus Christ illustrates God’s absolute control over His plan of salvation. Through Abraham and David, God sent a Messiah who would redeem humankind from their sins and reconcile them to the Father. That plan for our redemption would not – could not – be thwarted, even by the sins of individuals in direct lineage to the Savior.

For example, Abraham offered his wife, Sarah, to an Egyptian king in order to save his own neck. David made another man’s wife pregnant, and then had him murdered to cover up his adultery. Solomon, also in the genealogy, built altars for his wives to worship false gods. Manasseh practiced witchcraft and human sacrifice.

But God’s plan for humanity’s redemption persevered – and continues to persevere. He wove the good and the bad into an intricate tapestry that unveiled first in a Bethlehem manger, then unfurled throughout Church history, despite the scandals, shame and divisions of His people.

Jesus’ genealogy is a register of people like you and me – sinful, weak, fearful. The King of Glory was born into our human family to redeem the lost, strengthen the weak and encourage the fearful. He was born to make us “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession,” so that we would accept and declare His salvation to those who don’t believe God cares for them (see 1 Peter 2:9).

When we see the inevitableness of God’s plan through the ages, we shouldn’t be so easily tempted to wonder if God really is in complete control of the affairs of our world – or of things that directly affect our lives.

We’d only have to remember the genealogy of Christ to realize that what God starts, He sees through to completion. He started our salvation when we accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and this also HE WILL SEE THROUGH TO COMPLETION.

And nothing can frustrate His plan.

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Half Law and Half Grace?

What does it take to receive the salvation of God? Is it half law and half grace as some Christians seem to believe? Is it half Jesus Christ giving us grace and half us keeping the law?
Many churches and pastors believe that the ten commandments (and at times other portions of the old covenant) must be preached to sinners to prepare them to accept Christ. The idea is taught in several different ways:

1) People must be convinced that they have a problem (that they are sinners) before they are given the Answer. 2) Before people can appreciate the gospel (good news) they must first understand the bad news, their own predicament.3) Before people are motivated to be rescued and saved they must realize that they are lost.

While these ideas may sound good and are not entirely erroneous, what they amount to, in many cases, is that condemnation and shame are preached. First, send them on a guilt trip - then rescue them is the idea. Send them to hell with fire and brimstone sermons so that they will appreciate heaven. Or expose people's sins, so that in their embarrassment they will accept Christ!?! Wow - does that sound like Jesus? Where do we find Jesus doing such a thing? The only people or system that He exposed were those who thought they were so religiously superior - the very ones who were running around exposing and condemning the hell out of everyone else! WE DON’T FIND JESUS "EXPOSING” THOSE WHO DID NOT PRETEND TO BE RELIGIOUS.

Nothing in the New Testament gives instructions to Christ followers to inflict this kind of devious, manipulative preaching on others, in the name of God. The New Testament tells us that people are brought to Jesus for their salvation. It does not indicate that people are saved by shaming them through condemnation.

This kind of teaching leads to externally based criteria - so that the vast majority of this kind of preaching (which is really not the gospel at all!) is all about how people are disobedient, how they need to start keeping the law, how they need to start pleasing God, etc. The word "grace" is used but not understood.

If even one-percent required-for-salvation law is preached, the grace of our Lord and Savior is not preached. One-percent required-for-salvation law keeping so dilutes, waters down and poisons the gospel that it is no gospel at all. That's the absolutely clear message of the book of Galatians. This kind of teaching completely ignores the fact that once we are in a living union with Christ, because of God's grace, that we are changed from the inside out. When the risen Lord lives His life in us He transforms us into His "workmanship" (Ephesians 2:10) so that we are obedient to Jesus Christ. We are obedient because He lives in us.

The New Testament categorically teaches that God loves us and that we are accepted, saved, reborn, transformed (any number of terms used) because we accept Jesus - because of His obedience we are saved, reborn, transformed, etc. The New Testament, conversely, DOES NOT teach that we make ourselves loved by God, and accepted by Him, because of our obedience. That is a false gospel, specifically the heresy called Galatianism!

When we obey laws, externally, that obedience does not bring about internal transformation. Jesus is not produced by us being moral. Morality does not produce Jesus. Nor, on the other hand, does Jesus do something because it is the right thing to do. What Jesus does IS, by definition, the right thing to do. Christ-centered morality is produced out of a transformed heart, out of the inner beings of those in whom Jesus lives, for, as He promised, living waters will flow out of us (John 7:38).

The approach of Puritanism (which is sadly still alive and well) was that a man is made holy on the basis of deeds. Holiness is found, in this view, through our external obedience to God's laws. This approach leads to a deification, or at least semi-deification, of the ten commandments - with plaques, monuments, embroidery, tapestry, extolling the law - but not the Savior. Many people who call themselves Christians would never dream of displaying a cross in their home, but will instead festoon their living environment with ten commandment posters and plaques. The failure of this approach can be demonstrated over and over again. The law fails to bring righteousness and holiness. Righteousness and holiness can only be imputed, by grace; produced by the indwelling of our Lord and Savior. No human or group of humans, no law or combination of laws, produces holiness. It never has and never will.

There is a sense in which the law prepares the way for the gospel - and that sense is this: The law demonstrates the complete bankruptcy and inability of humans to even begin to keep the law and to make God love them more because of their obedience. The law leads to Christ in the sense that the cross obliterates the law as a system of worshipping God. For Christians, Jesus is the very center and foundation, He is in the spotlight of our worship - and He does not share that spotlight with any ethical system, whether it be the old covenant, or some other. We become in Christ all that He wants us to be because of who and what He is, and what He works in and through us. This approach is yet another legalistic system of religion - at the very best it is getting the cart of law-keeping and moralism ahead of Jesus. It is religion, not relationship. It is hopelessly flawed, and anti-Christ by its very methodology.

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Perichoresis - What in the world is it?

Most of us can’t even pronounce perichoresis much less spell it. What does it mean?

Let me begin with a story. I have a dear friend who said to me one day, “It just hit me what a worthless Christian life I have. For Pete’s sake, I’m married and I’ve got two kids. When I’m not grocery shopping, I’m cooking the groceries, and when I’m not cooking the groceries I’m cleaning up, and when I’m not doing that I’m trying to find clothes for my children and keep this mess of a house presentable. And sometime in there I’m trying to find time for my husband. I don’t even have time to read my Bible. What do I have that I can do for God?”

I said to her, “Where did that concern for your children, for your husband, for a nice home come from? Did you wake up yesterday morning and decide you were going to be a god momma, a good wife, a good homemaker?”

She said, “Not exactly.”

I said, “Isn’t Jesus the good Shepherd who cares about all His sheep? HE PUT HIS CONCERN FOR THIS SHEEP (YOUR CHILDREN, YOUR HUSBAND) IN YOUR HEART. You see, you are participating in nothing less than Jesus’ life and burden. He was tending to His sheep through you. What is greater than that?”

In the light of the fact that Jesus Christ died for us and rose again so that He could come and dwell right within those of us who accepted Him as Savior and Lord, we’ve got to rethink everything we thought we knew about ourselves and others and our ordinary human life.

The simple truth is there is nothing at all ordinary about us and the life we live. Caring for others from our family to our friends to the poor in spirit around us, our love for our husbands and wives and children, our passion for music and beauty, for coaching, gardening and fishing; these things do not have their origin in us.

They are not something that we invented. It is all coming from the Father, Son and Spirit through the indwelling Christ. When this dreadful secular/sacred divide is exploded, we can see and honor life as it truly is for the Christian – the gift of participating in the life and relationship of the Father, Son and Spirit.

The concept of perichoresis helps us understand what our living union with Christ means for us. We could define perichoresis as “mutual indwelling without loss of personal identity.” I other words, we now exist in union with the Triune God but we do not lose our distinct personhood in the process.

Only the Trinity could have union without loss of personal distinction – a concept that is hard for us to wrap our minds around. If you have union without distinction (as in many Eastern religions), you tumble into pantheism, and we would be united to God in such a way as to be completely absorbed into Him. There would no longer be a distinct “us” to feel and taste and experience the life of God.

If you have distinction without union, you end up with deism, Where God is just up there somewhere watching us from a distance, and we never see our humanity as included in the life of God. Motherhood and fatherhood, work and play and music and sports then appear to be merely secular, non-divine aspects of our human experience. Deism leaves us with a Christ-less humanity, and forces us to search beyond our humanity for connection with God.

In the biblical concept of union with Christ, we say “no” to both pantheism and deism. We have union but no loss of personal distinction, which means that we matter and that our humanity and everything about it form the arena for our participation in the life of God. The Triune God meets us not in the sky or in our self-generated religions, but in our “ordinary” human existence.

Jesus is the one who knows the Father. He knows the Father’s love and acceptance. He sees the Father’s face. Jesus has freedom for fellowship with His Father. And Jesus shares all this with us by uniting Himself with us and we get to experience His divine life with Him.

What does the understanding that we are accepted into the mutual indwelling and communion with God remove from our souls? Fear and hiding. We can have the peace of God in knowing that our daily activities are actually being programed by the indwelling Christ as we trust Him to do so. Our likes and dislikes are guided toward Jesus tending His sheep through us. For a Christian, nothing is really “secular”.

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