Implications (1)

I recently completed a series of posts on the interactions between the spiritual and physical realms. Before I go on to describe some Big Spiritual Shifts, I will discuss three significant implications.

The first implication of spiritual/physical interaction is much easier to know than to live. I am sure that most who people read my posts and thought, “Yeah, I knew that”. There may be a little disagreement on the details, but most would agree with what I outlined.

Yet, I would challenge that very few Christians live at the intersection of the physical and the spiritual, as Jesus did.

The modern world view is so secular/materialist that it is hard to escape. I suspect that most Christian are influenced more by what they see on television (an unreal world) than by what they see God doing in the spiritual realms.

I know that I have to constantly remind myself to lift my eyes above the things of the world, and keep my eyes on the things that are above.

We respond to what people say and do. Jesus responded to what he saw his Father doing. If I had met the woman at the well, I would have quickly categorised her as a loose woman. I would have felt some sympathy, but it would have come out of pride that I am better than her. And everything would have remained the same. Jesus saw beyond the rough veneer of a mean life, and knew that God was going to use her to transform her village. He knew that the key to her heart was that she was a shutdown worshipper.

We react to events as they occur to us, but rarely think about the spiritual events behind them.

We see the suffering caused by Typhoon Haiyan, but we do not understand the parallel events in the spiritual realms.

We hear John McCain’s call to bomb and Iran and assume that it is just another neocon speaking. We do not think about what is going on in the spiritual realms that he is reflecting.

We need to move from understanding spiritual reality to living it.