The issue with religion is that religion says, something scared has to take place in order for something to be spiritually “Holy”. But the question is what makes that thing any Holier then the other thing? And the answer is….(wait for it, wait for it) it is not. We miss the power of God if we think that He is limited to ritual. This misunderstanding of ritualistic Holiness ends up harming us and confusing God’s plan, purpose, and presence in His creation. Holiness and Sanctity are everywhere and we are not awake to it. He is everywhere and we are asleep. He is always in the place and we are the ones that just showed up.
Jesus was teaching us to be in tune to what is always happening around us. The idea is that you might live a better life if you understood that He is involved and concerned with every area of your life. Every interaction, every conversation, every place, every person, every mess, every time, every problem, every location. God is always doing something. It’s not a view that He is involved with the things that are “churchy”. He doesn’t get bored with one thing and moves onto another thing and forgets about the first thing. If He is not done with me then He is not done with you. If He can be here then He can be there. He is always working. Life in Christ is about being fully awake to the work of God in all things. (John 5:17)
“The purpose of worship is not to escape from this world, into the other world, but to open oneself to the meaning of Christ in the Common.” Church is not supposed to be a bubble that you run to, to hide from the world. It is a place where you go to learn how to make every place a sanctuary. We are to learn how to be like Christ in unChirst like situations. Worship is to help is realize these depths of our world. If worship doesn’t do this, then it is an empty ritual.” (John Robinson-Honest to God)
CHURCH!
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.
If I were to ask you to explain God’s spirit, what would you say?
Explain the Holy Spirit without using any “Christianese” (i.e. Holy, Trinity, God Head…etc)
For some of us, because of the way that we have heard other people explain the Spirit, we stay away from trying to explain it. Probably because we feel that it is this weird unexplainable thing, because we don’t really get it. We believe it, but we just don’t get it. There is also another spectrum that just believes that anything that has to do with the Spirit is crazy and loony and you don’t touch it with a 10 ft pole. But over and over again in the scriptures you have this affirmation of Spirit.
For thousands of years throughout human history, people have understood that the spirit is similar to the air that you push out of your nose, and inhale through your nose. Our physical breathe is somehow a representation of a far deeper unseen force that is what gives us life. In the ancient middle-eastern culture, the word for breath is the same for spirit. There is awareness that there is a life-force that you either posses or you don’t, and to have it means life, and to not have it means death. This same life-force is somehow connected to you breathing.
So when we talk about spirit, there is an understanding that we all have of something that animates us at a physical level, but being represented as something that keeps us alive at a far deeper level—this is called “spirit”. So if I were to make a couple of observations about spirit, without using “Chrisitianese”, I would describe “spirit” like this:
Animating Energy: When we say “spirit”, we are talking about an energy that animates things. There is a certain language that is used when we discuss spirit. “I need my spirit lifted.” So with this language, we build an understanding that this “spirit” is like electricity that we plug things into.
Non-Material Essence: There are material realities: dirt, trees, bones, blood, food etc. In contrast, when we talk about something spiritual, we are talking about something that is non-material. There are things that we can engage with our natural senses,(i.e. Taste, Touch, Smell, See, Hear)but then there are realities that are just as real but they are not material. They are a non-material essence.
Sensory Transcendence: There are realities that go beyond my five senses and they are just as real, (even though I can’t access them through my five senses) as these things. Here is a simple example: When I embrace my wife, I am wrapping my arms around her physically, so we can feel each other touching, but I really love her, and she can’t feel that essence of my love with her arms. So there are these realities that we live with everyday, that you cannot access or prove them, but yet they are just as real as things that you can hold in your hand. So when you say that someone is “spiritual”, you are saying that they are tuned into realities that transcend what we can access with our five senses in the material or sensory realm.
Each of us has an inner life. We all have an inner command center that essentially runs the show that we call “our life”. From this command center we make decisions, whether or not it is subjective or objective. We make decisions whether they make since or not. But it is this inner life, signals something to us that something may or may not feel right. We see this at work when we meet people. We see this at work when we hear something. We see this at work when we experience certain things. Some of us are more in tune with it than others, and that is ok. But no matter what the case may be, we encounter these feelings in the daily. Jesus knew in His spirit is what the text explains. Walking in the spirit in everyday language is being so connected with the divine in the daily that God’s spirit begins to shape, and fill, and control (not dictatorly)our inner life. These people that have allowed the inner life to be shaped by God are so contagious. They are a joy to be around. They are the ones that we want to be around. To be shaped by the spirit of God means to have your inner life that sees another reality than the current one, and that propels you into the manifestation of greatness on this earth.
To ask for God’s spirit is to say: “I am spent, and I need something to animate me, because I can’t do it myself.” Walking in the spirit is finding a permanent connection to God’s animating energy that fuels your inner life so much so that the effects are seen in your outer life. “God I am at the end of everything that is me, and I need your SPIRIT.”
CHURCH!
