What limits our ability to see truth? There are many factors, and often multiple factors work within us simultaneously. Beyond busyness, there is pride. Then there is what I call “event blindness”—when an emotionally significant event causes us to block alternative views from our understanding.
The Sacred/Secular Divide
Lying beneath all of these factors are the deceptions of Satan. God calls Satan the great deceiver because he is so crafty in taking actual truth and slightly twisting it to cause doubt. The broad damage caused by the sacred/secular divide is that it extracts Christians and most of their daily activity from God Himself.
Seven Truths About God’s Kingdom
Truth 1: The sacred/secular divide inhibits the church from being all God wants it to be. This division suggests that God’s influence is limited to the “sacred” realm, while the “secular” is separate and even potentially sinful.
Truth 2: God made the earth and everything in it. He called creation “very good.” The Bible emphasizes that everything we do should be done for God’s glory (1 Cor 10:31, Col 3:23).
Truth 3: God has designed humans to see and enjoy Him within His created world. This perspective leads to compartmentalization where individuals recognize God’s presence only in church, neglecting His presence in all other areas of life.
Truth 4: God has designed each of us for an active role in His kingdom on this earth. A misunderstanding of vocation suggests only those in religious work serve God. In reality, all vocations should be holy callings.
Truth 5: Humans devised the sacred/secular divide, thereby rejecting God. Around 400 BC, Greek philosophers separated body and mind, degrading physical labor. The Enlightenment made this worse by making the mind an idol.
Truth 6: The separation of church and state is not biblical. Satan’s deception confines God to the religion sphere, except for evangelism.
Truth 7: God wants us to live differently than the non-believing world. God designed spheres with differing roles within culture. When one sphere tries to control another, it fails.
As a result: over 90% of the Christian world is not free to use their vocational callings as God designed them.
