The Sacred and the Profane

So is this 24/7 connection to God automatic?  If there is no sacred/secular distinction for the believer is it all smooth sailing on the sin front?  Are our actions always godly by virtue of our identity in Christ?  The short answer is No, No, and No.  There is one distinction that still haunts us, even in our new identity as God’s children.  And it is the distinction between the sacred and the profane.

Profane was a more common word in the days of King James.  Its Greek form bebēlos (βεβηλóς) means, “primarily, permitted to be trodden; hence, unhallowed, profane, opposite of sacred.”  According to Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, “it is that which lacks all relationship or affinity to God.”  It is more commonly translated “worldliness” in today’s versions of the New Testament.

As Paul, Peter, James, and John all make clear in the epistles, it is possible for believers – who have a “relationship or affinity to God” in their identity – to not always show it in their actions.  If fact, we can show in our actions a lack of relationship or affinity to God.  We can look like an unbeliever.  The Bible calls it “walking in the flesh”.  It is walking in a worldly manner.

Christians have a choice.  “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.  For sin shall not be master over you” (Rom 6:12-14).  We can choose to serve sin or serve the Lord.  We can choose the sacred or the profane.  And, in an incredible infusion of Christ’s righteousness in us, we have the power to choose the sacred.  “Sin shall not be master over you.”

But the choice still must be made.  May I encourage you walk in the Spirit, to walk in the identity of the Spirit that indwells you, to walk in the Spirit’s power.  It is our one defense against the profane deeds of the flesh.