Spiritual People

We live in a very physical world. We have bodies and physical needs. The world itself is a material planet on which we physically depend. All that is normal. But in today’s consumer society our physical world is presented to us as our only world: there is nothing else which matters. Happiness is supposed to rely on physical possessions – an expensive automobile and a big house in the country. It is hardly surprising then that so many people are so unhappy and that there is so much crime and drug addiction.

Mammon rules in so many hearts.

Jesus Christ, however, tells us emphatically that this is NOT the way to live. He tells us that being preoccupied by the material things of this world is the wrong attitude. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.

Jesus tells us instead to seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness and all these [material] things shall be added unto you. 

In chapter 6 of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus  talks extensively on this matter. He talks about the birds of the air not sowing and harvesting crops, and yet God feeds them. He talks about not taking thought for the morrow, for what we shall wear or eat, because God knows our needs.

What Jesus describes is a mentality in total contrast to the world we live in  – a world obsessed with material gain – working more to gain more material possessions, to have more money to “enjoy yourself”.

WRONG !

Firstly and most importantly, Jesus points out that we are primarily spiritual beings !

We are principally spiritual beings, not physical. It is part of our fallen nature that we are dead in trespasses and sins, as the apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians. Dead to true spiritual life in Christ. Dead to all that truly matters, but very much alive to the material world around us which impinges on our physical senses and emotions.

The Christian life is about living the new life in Christ in which we are alive to God, alive to all that truly matters. It is about learning to live that life, with that perspective, and freeing ourselves from a sense of dependence on the material preoccupations of this world. This is called sanctification.

Remember that God created the heavens and the earth, and he did so by speaking out his word – Let there be is the refrain in Genesis chapter 1.

This material world is born out of the spiritual dimension, not the other way round. The spiritual is the greater power, not the physical.

That being so, it is to the rules of God’s greater spiritual realm that we must look. We are called first and foremost to live by God’s rules, not our own instincts or the lies and immorality of the selfish world in which we find ourselves.

We are not to lie and cheat in order to gain. We are not to manipulate and exploit other human beings to get what we want out of them.

No, we are to live by God’s rules – Love God and Love others.

Period.

If someone wants us to lie and cheat at work, we say NO.

If someone offers us a job which means lying and cheating others, then we say NO.

If that means we suffer materially, then so be it. If that leaves us with the prospect of no work, then so be it.

Because God will provide in his way and in his time. But the condition of knowing God’s blessing is this. OBEDIENCE.

Pure and simple.

Kingdom means a place where a king rules. And in Biblical times, a king’s rule was absolute. That means that God’s rule in our lives is absolute. We do as HE says.

We don’t do as we want; we don’t copy the self seeking world around us; we don’t give in to the taunts and jibes of people who deride our stance for Jesus Christ.

No, we continue in patient obedience to God’s rules.

That does not mean we are lazy. That does not mean we don’t work at all. God did not give us all our faculties, mental and physical, for us not to use them [or indeed to abuse them].

There are always things that must be done around the home etc. There are always others whom we know whether in church or in our locality who need our help or encouragement.

Better is little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure and trouble therewith

Proverbs 15, 16

Christian Preacher