Real spirituality
In our day religion has practically become a dirty word. This is true both in the church and the world. "Organized religion" is blamed by the world for wars, bigotry, manipulation, and power mongering. It is blamed by the church for nominalism, legalism, and all the evils thereof.
In the world the pop culture catch phrase of the day is " I'm not religious... I'm SPIRITUAL!" The Christian varient is "I'm not religious, I have a relationship with Jesus!" or "its not a religion, its a relationship!".
As with most pop culture catch phrases (christian or otherwise) when you begin to look behind these trite phrases, you find that they are, in most cases, devoid of any real meaning. Particularly in the case of the non christian, and sadly more often than should be in the case of the christian, what these phrases really mean is "I make up my own religion".
In this post I will be looking at the questions of what is "real spirituality". What does it mean to be a truly spiritual person? What, if anything, is the difference between religion and spirituality?
Language is one of the most essential traits of humanity. It is one of our unique giftings. As such we should regard it as important, and in a sense, almost sacred. Thus we should avoid the degredation of words in ways which cheapen or impovrish our language.
Thus let us begin with the issue of "religion". This word has been made into a "whipping boy" for virtually every group that discusses anything on the topic. Atheists use "religion" to mean "irrational", Christians often use religion to mean "nominal" or "legalistic", new agers and the rebelious pop culture use the word "religion" to mean an organization which unjustly tries to control people's minds and actions.
what the word religion actually means is...
1. The service and worship of God or the supernatural.
2. Commitment or devotion to 'religious' faith or observance
3. A personal or institutionalized set of attitudes, beleifs, and practices
4. A cause, principle, or system of belief held to with ardor and faith
From this you can clearly see, first of all, that Christianity is obviously a religion and secondly that virtually EVERYONE on earth is religious, including atheists (especially atheists).
If you want to talk about nominalism, or legalism, or works based salvation, or false security.. then talk about those things but stop abusing the word religion. Doing so only confuses your meaning, and opens people up to deception through giving false impressions.
What then is spirituality?
The meaning of the word is fairly simple. It means basicly anything which affects, or has to do with the spirit, sacred things, or the supernatural. That of course is not very suprising. We will keep this in mind and come back to it later.
Earlier I said that most people when they say "I'm not religious I'm spiritual" really mean "I make up my own religion". In the phrase above religion is meant specificly to refer to organized, external religion. A belief system which comes to you from others, and which imposes an external set of beliefs and commands upon you. By contrast, spiritual in the phrase means that the person is drawing their beliefs, their commandments and rules, from within, from their self, which they presume to be their spirit. This does not mean, necessarily, that the person in question is inventing soemthing entirely new, they could be picking a pre-existing system of belief, but the point is that they are picking it, and "believing it" because it is what they like, it is what appeals to them. Very often people like this will end up picking up bits and peices of different religions and cobbling them together into a mish mash based on their personal prefrences.
This is entirely contrary to christianity. While I have portrayed this phenomenon as somewhat new, because it is the pop culture flavor of the day, it is not new at all. It is infact the second oldest religion in the world, and it is the first man made religion. This is the religion of Cain.
In the story of Cain and Abel, what began the strife between them was the fact that Cain insisted on not worshiping as God had perscribed, and instead insisted on worshiping as he himself saw fit. God rejected Cain's self made religion, and warned Cain that his presumption was in danger of leading him into the jaws of sin.
The great message of christianity is "come just as you are to the cross and receive the transforming grace of God..." The heart of all false religion and deception is very similar (as is always the case with good lies). It says "Come on your own terms to God and demand his favor". You can come, just as you are, no matter how wretched, but you can never come on your own terms. You can only ever come to God, on His terms.
What most people seem to mean when they say "I am spiritual" is that they have formed their own terms on which they will come to God. This is the very opposite of what real spirituality is.
In the Bible we are taught that mankind exists in a state of spiritual death. We are seperated from God, and thus seperated from life. Man in this state is incapable of knowing God, or understanding the things of God.
In this state, man is ruled by his soul, the seat of his will and mind. It is this state of self exaltation that caused our spiritual death to begin with, and as long as it persists, we will never know true spiritual life.
This should point out the true irony and utter blindness of those who spout the phrase "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual". True spirituality can not be self made. It must come to us from an outside source.
That gives us one step on the journey to discovering real spirituality.
While it is not correct to say that Christianity is not a religion, it is correct to say that christianity is a religion that is all about relationship. Specificly Christianity is all about relationship with God.
God is a spirit. God breathed the first human spirit into Adam from his own breath. All our human spirits come from God, and they return to God. The life that kindled a soul in man was the life of God. Our spirits come from his spirit. Our life comes from his life. He is the source.
We have seen that true spirituality can not come from self. We can not make it, we do not have it in us. We must get it from some outside source. God is that source. This is where the idea of relationship really comes in. In today's pop christianity the image presented is that the 'relationship' with Jesus is one like you might have with one of your buddies... you hang out together, you have some laughs, you talk.. he comes over to watch the ball game.. etc.
While Jesus is a friend to us who sticks closer than a brother, this imagery of our relationship with God falls WOEFULLY short of capturing the reality of what God desires of us, and for us.
Spirit, is how we relate to God. It is how we commune with God, it is how we worship God, it is how we understand and know God. It is how we receive the life of God, thus it is how God lives in us, and we in him. My words surely fail to describe the difference between an image in which God sits beside you on the couch watching TV chatting with you.. and an image in which God is your very life, your very breath. He is like the air in your lungs, and all around you. He not only talks with you, but he becomes the medium on which your words are carried, the inspiration behind your words. You can see how some people could begin to doubt the idea of human freedom when they see such a close abiding, indwelling relationship. However, the difference is this... he does not think your thoughts... he directs you what to think, and you may follow his direction.. or follow yourself.
Now we come to what I believe is one of the greatest failings of modern christianity. Modern christianity starts from a position of seperating the spiritual and the physical. We tend almost to see the spirit as the opposite of the physical, and visa versa. We see them as two seperate worlds which never really meet. In this view, we have almost become gnostic, but it is also twinged with materialism because inherent in this for many people is the idea that 'spiritual' equals ' symbolic' while 'physical' equals 'real'. I believe this idea which is often subtlely ingrained in the modern mind, hinders christians almost more than anything else from understanding and achieving true spirituality.
The physical and the spiritual are connected. The physical creation is an expression of the spiritual God. The ironic thing of this truth is that while we in our modern materialistic mind tend to equate "spiritual" with "symbolic" it is infact just the opposite. In creation, the physical has become a symbol of the spiritual.
In humanity the relationship between physical and spiritual is brought to a unique pinnacle. Trees, rocks, the sky, are all physical things which reflect, or express, or symbolize the spiritual reality of God. Humans on the other hand do not merely reflect something spiritual... we are something spiritual. In us physical and spiritual are joined. Whats more, every indication of scripture is that this condition is eternal. There is no indication that we will ever cease to be physical beings.
The problem, for humanity, is that when we fell through sin, our spiritual nature died, it ceased to function because it was cut off from the source, God. As a result, we do not naturally function as spiritual beings. There is something in us which knows that we should and even desires to do so, but we do not.
The beginning of true spirituality then must obviously be the "born again" experience. That moment when our spirit is created anew and our communion with God restored. That, however, is just the beginning.
In our fallen nature we function as purely physical beings. Our perceptions, desires, motivations are all dominated by the physical world, and our will rules. This does not simply cease to be when your spirit is reborn. We must be converted. We must be transformed. We must learn to hear, see, and feel the spirit.We must learn to know and understand by spirit. We must learn to be motivated and directed by spirit.
This transformation is not the destruction of the physical, or the removal of the physical, but rather the restoration of balance. The restoration of the proper order in which the physical is the expression of the spirit.
True spirituality is when your physical life becomes an expression of the spirit and life within you.
That sounds nice, but what does it mean practically?
First, Paul tells us that the spiritual man (ie our spirit) understands the things of God, but our natural man (ie the mind and soul) does not. So what we are understanding through our spirit, and what our spirit is expressing to us, does not come from us. It comes from God. It is the will of God. Once again, God is the source. Moreover we do not depend only on internal revelation of God's external will. God has revealed his will, his truth, objectively for us in Holy Scripture and has given us guidelines by which to test ourselves, and test what we consider to be spiritual.
MANY people fall into the trap of self deception. They ignore the word of God, and twist it for the purpose of exalting their 'revelations' which are born of self. (or worse)
That brings us to point two. God has told us already what things he will reveal in our spirit, and what we must be confromed to. Paul referred to this as "the fruit of the spirit". It is the fruit (phhysical expression) produced when you are truly spiritual.
When most people read the scripture which talks about the fruit of the spirit, they get the impression that there are many fruits of the spirit, because a list of things is described. However the word fruit in the passage is actually singular. Indicating that the fruit of the spirit is one thing and each element listed is one aspect of the fruit, like facets of a jewel.
The list is as follows...
-love
-joy
-peace
-patience
-kindness
-goodness
-faithfulness
-gentleness
-selfcontrol
What it means to be truly spiritual is that the truth of God known and understood in your spirit is expressed and visible in your daily physical life.
And here we come to the question of works... am I defining true spirituality as works? no. Because the truth is, no matter how hard and how long you try, you will never produce the fruit of the spirit on your own. As we have come to over and over.. the source if God, not self. You can only get true spirituality, you can only produce the fruit of the spirit if God is doing the work.
We can not produce the fruit of true spirituality in our own effort. All we can do is submerge ourselves in the life of God, and his life will produce the fruit.
In the world the pop culture catch phrase of the day is " I'm not religious... I'm SPIRITUAL!" The Christian varient is "I'm not religious, I have a relationship with Jesus!" or "its not a religion, its a relationship!".
As with most pop culture catch phrases (christian or otherwise) when you begin to look behind these trite phrases, you find that they are, in most cases, devoid of any real meaning. Particularly in the case of the non christian, and sadly more often than should be in the case of the christian, what these phrases really mean is "I make up my own religion".
In this post I will be looking at the questions of what is "real spirituality". What does it mean to be a truly spiritual person? What, if anything, is the difference between religion and spirituality?
Language is one of the most essential traits of humanity. It is one of our unique giftings. As such we should regard it as important, and in a sense, almost sacred. Thus we should avoid the degredation of words in ways which cheapen or impovrish our language.
Thus let us begin with the issue of "religion". This word has been made into a "whipping boy" for virtually every group that discusses anything on the topic. Atheists use "religion" to mean "irrational", Christians often use religion to mean "nominal" or "legalistic", new agers and the rebelious pop culture use the word "religion" to mean an organization which unjustly tries to control people's minds and actions.
what the word religion actually means is...
1. The service and worship of God or the supernatural.
2. Commitment or devotion to 'religious' faith or observance
3. A personal or institutionalized set of attitudes, beleifs, and practices
4. A cause, principle, or system of belief held to with ardor and faith
From this you can clearly see, first of all, that Christianity is obviously a religion and secondly that virtually EVERYONE on earth is religious, including atheists (especially atheists).
If you want to talk about nominalism, or legalism, or works based salvation, or false security.. then talk about those things but stop abusing the word religion. Doing so only confuses your meaning, and opens people up to deception through giving false impressions.
What then is spirituality?
The meaning of the word is fairly simple. It means basicly anything which affects, or has to do with the spirit, sacred things, or the supernatural. That of course is not very suprising. We will keep this in mind and come back to it later.
Earlier I said that most people when they say "I'm not religious I'm spiritual" really mean "I make up my own religion". In the phrase above religion is meant specificly to refer to organized, external religion. A belief system which comes to you from others, and which imposes an external set of beliefs and commands upon you. By contrast, spiritual in the phrase means that the person is drawing their beliefs, their commandments and rules, from within, from their self, which they presume to be their spirit. This does not mean, necessarily, that the person in question is inventing soemthing entirely new, they could be picking a pre-existing system of belief, but the point is that they are picking it, and "believing it" because it is what they like, it is what appeals to them. Very often people like this will end up picking up bits and peices of different religions and cobbling them together into a mish mash based on their personal prefrences.
This is entirely contrary to christianity. While I have portrayed this phenomenon as somewhat new, because it is the pop culture flavor of the day, it is not new at all. It is infact the second oldest religion in the world, and it is the first man made religion. This is the religion of Cain.
In the story of Cain and Abel, what began the strife between them was the fact that Cain insisted on not worshiping as God had perscribed, and instead insisted on worshiping as he himself saw fit. God rejected Cain's self made religion, and warned Cain that his presumption was in danger of leading him into the jaws of sin.
The great message of christianity is "come just as you are to the cross and receive the transforming grace of God..." The heart of all false religion and deception is very similar (as is always the case with good lies). It says "Come on your own terms to God and demand his favor". You can come, just as you are, no matter how wretched, but you can never come on your own terms. You can only ever come to God, on His terms.
What most people seem to mean when they say "I am spiritual" is that they have formed their own terms on which they will come to God. This is the very opposite of what real spirituality is.
In the Bible we are taught that mankind exists in a state of spiritual death. We are seperated from God, and thus seperated from life. Man in this state is incapable of knowing God, or understanding the things of God.
In this state, man is ruled by his soul, the seat of his will and mind. It is this state of self exaltation that caused our spiritual death to begin with, and as long as it persists, we will never know true spiritual life.
This should point out the true irony and utter blindness of those who spout the phrase "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual". True spirituality can not be self made. It must come to us from an outside source.
That gives us one step on the journey to discovering real spirituality.
While it is not correct to say that Christianity is not a religion, it is correct to say that christianity is a religion that is all about relationship. Specificly Christianity is all about relationship with God.
God is a spirit. God breathed the first human spirit into Adam from his own breath. All our human spirits come from God, and they return to God. The life that kindled a soul in man was the life of God. Our spirits come from his spirit. Our life comes from his life. He is the source.
We have seen that true spirituality can not come from self. We can not make it, we do not have it in us. We must get it from some outside source. God is that source. This is where the idea of relationship really comes in. In today's pop christianity the image presented is that the 'relationship' with Jesus is one like you might have with one of your buddies... you hang out together, you have some laughs, you talk.. he comes over to watch the ball game.. etc.
While Jesus is a friend to us who sticks closer than a brother, this imagery of our relationship with God falls WOEFULLY short of capturing the reality of what God desires of us, and for us.
Spirit, is how we relate to God. It is how we commune with God, it is how we worship God, it is how we understand and know God. It is how we receive the life of God, thus it is how God lives in us, and we in him. My words surely fail to describe the difference between an image in which God sits beside you on the couch watching TV chatting with you.. and an image in which God is your very life, your very breath. He is like the air in your lungs, and all around you. He not only talks with you, but he becomes the medium on which your words are carried, the inspiration behind your words. You can see how some people could begin to doubt the idea of human freedom when they see such a close abiding, indwelling relationship. However, the difference is this... he does not think your thoughts... he directs you what to think, and you may follow his direction.. or follow yourself.
Now we come to what I believe is one of the greatest failings of modern christianity. Modern christianity starts from a position of seperating the spiritual and the physical. We tend almost to see the spirit as the opposite of the physical, and visa versa. We see them as two seperate worlds which never really meet. In this view, we have almost become gnostic, but it is also twinged with materialism because inherent in this for many people is the idea that 'spiritual' equals ' symbolic' while 'physical' equals 'real'. I believe this idea which is often subtlely ingrained in the modern mind, hinders christians almost more than anything else from understanding and achieving true spirituality.
The physical and the spiritual are connected. The physical creation is an expression of the spiritual God. The ironic thing of this truth is that while we in our modern materialistic mind tend to equate "spiritual" with "symbolic" it is infact just the opposite. In creation, the physical has become a symbol of the spiritual.
In humanity the relationship between physical and spiritual is brought to a unique pinnacle. Trees, rocks, the sky, are all physical things which reflect, or express, or symbolize the spiritual reality of God. Humans on the other hand do not merely reflect something spiritual... we are something spiritual. In us physical and spiritual are joined. Whats more, every indication of scripture is that this condition is eternal. There is no indication that we will ever cease to be physical beings.
The problem, for humanity, is that when we fell through sin, our spiritual nature died, it ceased to function because it was cut off from the source, God. As a result, we do not naturally function as spiritual beings. There is something in us which knows that we should and even desires to do so, but we do not.
The beginning of true spirituality then must obviously be the "born again" experience. That moment when our spirit is created anew and our communion with God restored. That, however, is just the beginning.
In our fallen nature we function as purely physical beings. Our perceptions, desires, motivations are all dominated by the physical world, and our will rules. This does not simply cease to be when your spirit is reborn. We must be converted. We must be transformed. We must learn to hear, see, and feel the spirit.We must learn to know and understand by spirit. We must learn to be motivated and directed by spirit.
This transformation is not the destruction of the physical, or the removal of the physical, but rather the restoration of balance. The restoration of the proper order in which the physical is the expression of the spirit.
True spirituality is when your physical life becomes an expression of the spirit and life within you.
That sounds nice, but what does it mean practically?
First, Paul tells us that the spiritual man (ie our spirit) understands the things of God, but our natural man (ie the mind and soul) does not. So what we are understanding through our spirit, and what our spirit is expressing to us, does not come from us. It comes from God. It is the will of God. Once again, God is the source. Moreover we do not depend only on internal revelation of God's external will. God has revealed his will, his truth, objectively for us in Holy Scripture and has given us guidelines by which to test ourselves, and test what we consider to be spiritual.
MANY people fall into the trap of self deception. They ignore the word of God, and twist it for the purpose of exalting their 'revelations' which are born of self. (or worse)
That brings us to point two. God has told us already what things he will reveal in our spirit, and what we must be confromed to. Paul referred to this as "the fruit of the spirit". It is the fruit (phhysical expression) produced when you are truly spiritual.
When most people read the scripture which talks about the fruit of the spirit, they get the impression that there are many fruits of the spirit, because a list of things is described. However the word fruit in the passage is actually singular. Indicating that the fruit of the spirit is one thing and each element listed is one aspect of the fruit, like facets of a jewel.
The list is as follows...
-love
-joy
-peace
-patience
-kindness
-goodness
-faithfulness
-gentleness
-selfcontrol
What it means to be truly spiritual is that the truth of God known and understood in your spirit is expressed and visible in your daily physical life.
And here we come to the question of works... am I defining true spirituality as works? no. Because the truth is, no matter how hard and how long you try, you will never produce the fruit of the spirit on your own. As we have come to over and over.. the source if God, not self. You can only get true spirituality, you can only produce the fruit of the spirit if God is doing the work.
We can not produce the fruit of true spirituality in our own effort. All we can do is submerge ourselves in the life of God, and his life will produce the fruit.
posted by Simon Templar | 6:48 PM
4 Comments:
An excellent post, Simon! I especially like this paragraph:
Now we come to what I believe is one of the greatest failings of modern christianity. Modern christianity starts from a position of seperating the spiritual and the physical. We tend almost to see the spirit as the opposite of the physical, and visa versa. We see them as two seperate worlds which never really meet. In this view, we have almost become gnostic, but it is also twinged with materialism because inherent in this for many people is the idea that 'spiritual' equals ' symbolic' while 'physical' equals 'real'. I believe this idea which is often subtlely ingrained in the modern mind, hinders christians almost more than anything else from understanding and achieving true spirituality. Have you ever read "Escape from Reason" by Francis Schaeffer? He traces the evolution of this misconception throughout history.
One thing that I disagreed with in your post. The problem, for humanity, is that when we fell through sin, our spiritual nature died, it ceased to function because it was cut off from the source, God.
Our spiritual nature didn't die, it became twisted. Man is still a spiritual being fallen or regenerated. The unsaved are still able to communicate with the evil spirit world (demons etc.) through their twisted spiritual nature. However, you are right that in order to bear fruits of the [Holy] Spirit we need to be born again...start over with a clean spiritual nature. And that's why it seems that being born again isn't a momentary process...it takes our whole lives.
Anyway, an excellent post...I love the deep thoughts that characterize your posts.
Great post, Simon! And thanks for commenting on my blog... You left some great thoughts!
"True spirituality is when your physical life becomes an expression of the spirit and life within you."
So true... As Christians our spiritual nature will be reflected by our good works. Those works, consisting of kindess, joy, love peace, and all the other attributes you listed, are what set us apart from the rest of the world.
Jonathan M:
"The unsaved are still able to communicate with the evil spirit world (demons etc.) through their twisted spiritual nature."
Not following you here... Do you mean that unsaved persons are influenced by the demonic, or that they actually communicate with devils, etc?
Also, Jonathan, how are you defining "spiritual nature?"
Keep up the great work, Simon! I think my interests and yours have a lot in common... Hope to hear more from you!
Jonathan,
I would agree with you that even in our fallen state, we retain spiritual capacity, or spiritual senses. We can sense the spiritual things. When I refer to the state of spiritual deadness, the death must be understood as a seperation from God. God is the source of true life and in being seperated from him, we die. That is why in scripture, sin inevitably leads to death.
A comparable idea would be that of goodness. We as the image and likeness of God retain a capacity to do good, and even accomplish truly noble deeds. Yet God is the source of all true goodness, and in being cut off from him, we lose the capacity to be good, even though we can sometimes do 'good' things.
So when I refer to spiritual death I don't mean a complete destruction of all spiritual capacity, or spiritual nature. We can still do spiritual things, and interact with the spiritual world, but we have been cut off from the ability to live by the spirit, until God regenerates it within us.
Pete,
Thanks for stopping by :) I'm looking forward to conversing more in the future.
PS. Jonathan, at a second reading I can see how you got the impression you did about my use of the idea of spiritual death. I perhaps emphasized our lack of spiritual capacity too much.
Also, I have not read escape from reason, although Francis Schaefer's Christian Manifesto is one of the works (short but profound) that I would consider foundational in the formation of my worldview.
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