and ills to which human nature is heir. Merely to live among
men requires of us years of hard toil and much care and attention to the
things of this world. In sharp contrast to this is our life in the
Spirit. There we enjoy another and higher kind of life; we are children
of God; we possess heavenly status and enjoy intimate fellowship with
Christ.

This tends to divide our total life into two departments. We come
unconsciously to recognize two sets of actions. The first are performed
with a feeling of satisfaction and a firm assurance that they are
pleasing to God. These are the sacred acts and they are usually thought
to be prayer, Bible reading, hymn singing, church attendance and such
other acts as spring directly from faith. They may be known by the fact
that they have no direct relation to this world, and would have no
meaning whatever except as faith shows us another world, "an house not
made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

Over against these sacred acts are the secular ones. They include all of
the ordinary activities of life which we share with the sons and
daughters of Adam: eating, sleeping, working, looking after the needs of
the body and performing our dull and prosaic duties here on earth. These
we often do reluctantly and with many misgivings, often apologizing to
God for what we consider a waste of time and strength. The upshot of
this is that we are uneasy most of the time. We go about our common
tasks with a feeling of deep frustration, telling ourselves pensively
that there's a better day coming when we shall slough off this earthly
shell and be bothered no more with the affairs of this world.

This is the old sacred-secular antithesis. Most Christians are caught in
its trap. They cannot get a satisfactory adjustment between the claims
of the two worlds. They try to walk the tight rope between two kingdoms
and they find no peace in either. Their strength is reduced, their
outlook confused and their joy taken from them.

I believe this state of affairs to be wholly unnecessary. We have gotten
ourselves on the horns of a dilemma, true enough, but the dilemma is not
real. It is a creature of misunderstanding. The sacred-secular
antithesis has no foundation in the New Testament. Without doubt a more
perfect understanding of Christian truth will deliver us from it.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is our perfect example, and He knew no
divided life. In the Presence of His Father He lived on earth w