Here’s a test. Think about what gives you the most comfort. What motivates you and keeps you going? Are those things spiritual or physical?
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” (Ecc. 3:11)
Each of us entertains the physical world and the spiritual realm. These two modes of existence are constantly intertwined and can often be at odds with one another. Take some time to think about it. Anything meaningful is both physical and spiritual. It’s physical and occupies space. It’s spiritual and occupies the soul.
Popular culture is sick. It’s diseased with the idea that the only solution to our discontent and apparent emptiness is MORE, and with greater intensity. It infuriates me that a YouTube video of a young girl in a tutu singing Super Bass (a song saturated in sex) draws millions of viewers exclaiming “How cute!” It’s not cute. It’s depravity, and the blame falls on every enabler because the child does not understand enough to know better. Do you see what I’m saying? The reason our culture is saturated with sex is because intimacy was replaced with intensity. Sex went from private to public because WE WANTED IT THAT WAY. It’s not just sex though. It’s wealth, it’s ambition, it’s individualization. If a person has forgotten or lost the ability to find contentment they will forever seek their own satisfaction at the detriment of others. In the end the biggest thing that suffers is our joy.
Do you know how much Scripture there is to verify this depravity? The ENTIRE story of the Old Testament is a story about the majority of the culture falling victim to selfish discontent while a few faithful ones are pointing them back to God, back to the place where physical and spiritual desires and needs are joined together in peace (shalom, wholeness).
Jesus came to earth to fulfill His Father’s Kingdom. “God is Spirit” but God is glorified in His creation, the place where what is spiritual joins together with physical expression. How easy is it to miss the spiritual side of things? Ask Jesus his thoughts on the Pharisees and he would tell you “They know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign” (Matthew 16:1-4). Jesus, God’s saving grace to us, was speaking directly to these people but all they did was demand more signs. They had put all their energy into maintaing the physical world around them (laws and regulations, etc.) that they completely missed Jesus and His mission to complete the work His Father had for him.
God created you with a heart that knows His ways. Eternity was written on your heart because God created you for relationship with him. Do not be fooled by the liars and fools in this world who would have you trade intimacy with God for intimacy with yourself and with the world. They promise you intensity is the solution to your happiness but that promise always falls short and even they are slaves to their own foolishness.
Ask yourself this. Am I finding my joy in things that are perishable? If what I gain leaves me wanting more, what kind of existence is that? Will you listen to Jesus’s words when he says “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
Will you trust him, even for a moment, and experience the blessing of peace? Will you pray?
You can have all this world, but give me Jesus.
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