subject: "Spiritual" Activities [print this page] "Spiritual" Activities "Spiritual" Activities
HAVE you noticed how some activities you do seem a lot more spiritual - more sacred - than others? Singing hyms, teaching church school, working at a soup kitchen or preparing a care basket for a sick friend - all of these seem more exalted than other activities. Even something as common as a holiday family gathering seems... sacred.
But what about when you drive to the petrol station to fill your tank with gas. Or when you count out coupons to the cashier at the supermarket? Or while you are waiting for the salesperson to wrap your purchase? Those activities seem far from spiritual and anything but sacred.
We do it all the time - separate "religious" activities into one group and "regular" into another. But Leviticus 19 address that problem. In one verse Moses says "Do not steal" (Leviticus 19:11). Yet the verse next to it says, "Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God" (Leviticus 19:10).
Again he says in one verse, "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people but love your neighbour as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). And the verse following? "Keep my decrees. Do not mate different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material" (Leviticus 19:19).
What didn't Moses simply group together all the spiritual activities and leave the rest of those nonessential, nonspiritual things for another chapter? Well, its no mistake that God spoke all these commands in one breath, mingling "spiritual" and "nonspiritual".
God is telling his people what he expects of them in their worship. God wants his people to understand that all life is spiritual; all of life's activities come under his domain. How we plow our field or how we shop at the market. How we mate our animals or even how we talk to a gas station attendant. Everything we do can be a way of worshiping him.
