Something I read...the religious drawer

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"It is common for many Christians in the West today to see their religious faith as just one aspect of their lives.  Picture your life as a chest of drawers.  You have a drawer for work.  You have a drawer for entertainment.  You have another for family.  And over to the side is a drawer that contains your religious practices.

Many Christians open up the religious drawer on Sundays and go through the motions of attending church, reciting the creeds, singing, and praying.  But on Sunday afternoon, they shut the drawer until the next weekend.  The religious drawer does not impinge upon the other drawers at all.  It stays nicely tucked away in a corner, off to the side.  Entertainment choices, leisure time, our ideas of success, our work ethic, the way we spend out money, our sexual choices -- each of these other drawers is left untouched.  We may affirm that Jesus is Lord of all, but our lives show that Jesus is Lord only of our religious practices.

But think about this:  if our faith is only applicable to "sacred practices" (like Bible study, prayer, and church attendance), then we have a faith that has little to say about what we do with the vast majority of our time.  Christianity becomes a mere addition to an old way of life.

The biblical picture is much richer.  And it is this biblical picture that we are called to proclaim to those around us.  "Jesus is Lord" is an announcement that applies to every aspect of our lives.  It is not subversive at all to worship Jesus in the privacy of our religious lives.  The church is counter-cultural by proclaiming Jesus as Lord over every area of live, not just our religious activities.

We cannot divide up our lives into "sacred" aspects and "secular" aspects, as if Jesus were Lord of only our sacred practices.  The Bible teaches that every area of the Christian's life should be sacred -- set apart under the lordship of Christ.  Our labor must be unto the Lord just as our leisure must be unto the Lord.  We do not confess that Jesus is Lord only of one drawer in the chest.  He is the chest's Maker, and he becomes the chest's Redeemer -- having purchased all the drawers with his precious blood."

                                                                   - Trevin Wax, Holy Subversion, p. 139-140