Growing up in the church, I loved Jesus, but there was a massive gap between my faith and my everyday life. I knew my eternity was secure but didn’t know what it meant for today. I knew I was going to heaven but wasn’t sure how to live on earth. I knew what I was saved from but had no idea what I was saved for. I knew I was supposed to pray before meals but didn’t know why. Deep down, I had this sense that God was concerned with spiritual things but didn’t care about my day-to-day life.
Many other Christians have had a similar experience. Maybe you have, too. Perhaps you love Jesus and know how to express it in church, but you wonder how loving him plays out in daily life. You might have questions like,
Does God care about my work?
Are hobbies a waste of time?
Does it matter what I eat?
Is there any spiritual value in art, science, or politics?
Will God be disappointed in me if I take a nap instead of praying?
Is technology distracting us from what is eternally significant?
Does my body matter as much as my soul?
What should I do with my sexual desires?
Is it okay for Christians to experience anxiety or depression?
Is relying on others a sign of spiritual weakness?
If you’ve struggled with questions like these, you’re not alone. Many Christians have become accustomed to devoting themselves to Jesus and then not knowing how to connect the dots to the most practical areas of life.
THE SACRED-SECULAR DIVIDE
How did we get to a place of believing that Jesus is our everything but not knowing how he applies to hardly anything in our lives? I think it’s largely because many Christians live with a sacred-secular divide.
There are the things that we assume God cares about and are therefore sacred: reading Scripture, praying, going to church, singing worship songs, serving, and so on. And then there are the things we think God doesn’t care about and are therefore secular: work, food, rest, play, exercise, mental health, hobbies, politics, sexuality, relationships, the body, money, and so forth. The sacred-secular divide does not assume that these things are bad; they are just neutral or less important. God doesn’t care about them unless they are used as instruments for explicitly spiritual purposes.
The sacred-secular divide creates a truncated view of Christianity that relegates God to a day of the week (Sunday), a part of our lives (spiritual), or a particular place (church building). It leads not to thriving humanity but to hyperspirituality.
Our lives end up resembling a dresser in a bedroom. A dresser has many different drawers, each providing a compartment for a particular type of clothing. There’s a compartment for pants, another for shirts, and one for socks and underwear. Oftentimes, we compartmentalize our lives: There’s a compartment for finances, another for sexuality, and others for emotions, relationships, and hobbies. Then, of course, there is the “spiritual” compartment. Jesus is supposed to stay there.
I have experienced this tension throughout my Christian life. When I was a kid in school, I didn’t know why my studies mattered to my faith. When I was playing college basketball, I wasn’t sure if God cared about sports. When I got my first job, I wondered if my work mattered for the kingdom. The sacred-secular divide left me with a fragmented faith, divided between compartments that never seemed to fit together.
I’ve seen the same struggle in others. A young woman working in Hollywood wonders whether the art she creates can really matter to God or if she has to tack on a Bible verse for it to count as spiritual. A mom at home changing diapers asks herself whether this endless cycle of wiping and feeding is just mundane work or whether God could actually delight in it. A man running on the treadmill questions whether strengthening his body is a selfish pursuit or something that could actually be offered to God. Whether in a studio, a nursery, or a gym, people often feel as if the most ordinary parts of life fall outside God’s concern.
DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES
There are several devastating consequences of the sacred-secular divide. First, it leads to guilt and shame, since Christians cannot possibly spend as much time on the “sacred” as they can on the “secular.” One may think, I must be a terrible Christian if I work eight hours a day but only read my Bible for ten minutes. This mindset inevitably leads to a class system within the church where pastors and missionaries are considered the only serious Christians.
Second, the sacred-secular divide encourages Christians to oppose what God declares good. People with this mentality often become anti-intellectual (even though God calls his people to love him with our minds), anti-science (even though God calls his people to understand his creation), anti-body (even though God makes us body and soul), and anti-environment (even though God’s first command is to care for the earth). The apostle Paul says, “To the pure, all things are pure” (Titus 1:15), but the sacred-secular divide encourages Christians to look down on earthly things as a waste of time at best or the devil’s workshop at worst.
Third, the sacred-secular divide causes many people to make cringeworthy “Christian versions” of secular culture: Christian T-shirts, Christian movies, Christian coffee shops, and Christian music, as if something cannot be glorifying to God unless it explicitly has the name of Jesus on it. Rather than rejoicing in God’s beautiful work of creation, this view only delights in God’s work of redemption.
Worst of all, the sacred-secular divide reduces Jesus to a spiritual life coach rather than the King of creation. Relegated to the spiritual compartment, this Jesus only has power within one jurisdiction. The divide pretends that Jesus is Lord when he is really just a butler in service of our own personal agendas. Saying, “Jesus is Lord of my spiritual life,” is like saying, “I’m fasting in between meals.” It’s meaningless. Either Jesus is Lord over all, or he is not Lord at all.
Taken from Everyday Discipleship by Jeremy Treat ©2026 by Jeremy Treat. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com