Chances are if you’re reading this you’ve been discipled into Western theology and Western Christianity. While the West has advanced many things for the cause of Christ, with our extreme emphasis on individualism and an over-emphasis on the material world, we’ve often been taught to segment our Christian life. And this isn’t good. It leads to a fractured spirituality.

Meaning, there’s the “spiritual” side of us: we go to church, read the Bible, pray, all the things.

Then there’s the “material” side of us: we work, pay bills, eat food, raise kids, O, and get attacked by demons! We just don’t realize it, because our worlds are divorced.

We Tend To View Our Lives Like This:

Completely segmented. We have a hard time recognizing how everything interweaves and interacts with us. We don’t realize that how we treat our neighbor on Tuesday impacts how we take communion on Sunday. But it does (1 Co. 11:18-20, 29-32).

Segmentation is not reality. The authors of Scripture could not imagine a world like this. Nor should we. This is not how God created us.

Following the Bible’s lead, we should view our lives more like this:

Our spiritual, physical, emotional lives are far more connected than we think. We are integrated beings.

This is why Paul could say things like sleeping with cult prostitutes tarnishes our spiritual intimacy with Christ. Sins like this create a spiritual oneness (1 Co. 6:15-20). It is a spiritual and a physical act, at the same time. They’re not separated. They’re integrated.

Think about it like this:

Imagine you’re not getting enough sleep. Suddenly, the “small” problems and annoyances in your life become larger problems than they truly are. You know, you’re hangry, just with sleep. (We’ll call it Tangry: tired and angry).

A comment from a coworker rubs you the wrong way. You stew on it all day, then yell at your spouse or roommate when you get home. Or, in your irritability, you give the silent treatment.  You feel angry, exhausted, and now guilty. You wonder if God is disappointed with you.

In this low moment, according to our Western mindset, the “right” thing to do is to pray, read the Word, or worship. Those are obviously important things, yes and amen to this! But they ignore the root of the problem—which is physical. You need to sleep! Go to bed, you’re tangry, and it is impacting your spirituality!

So let’s say you go to bed early that night, rest up, and wake up feeling completely normal. The angst and despair of yesterday is gone. You feel secure in God’s love for you.

How is this transformation possible? You didn’t pray, you slept. Now you’re able to worship while you’re driving to work with a better spirit?

Because God made you to sleep. In fact, he commands rest (Ex. 16:26). Therefore, sleeping is worship. As I obey God in this area, I honor him by living within the boundaries he’s set for my health. I’m treating my body like it was made to be treated.

When I honor God in physical things, my emotional, spiritual, and psychological improves. That’s because we are integrated creatures.

3 Practices to Connect Your Body & Soul

I hope you’re beginning to catch the vision for how your spiritual and physical life is deeply connected.

The world is more spiritual than you think.
Your spirituality is more physical than you think.
Your emotions are more spiritual than you think.

I’m not saying they all hold equal value. Our souls can thrive even while our bodies are wasting away (1 Tim. 4:8).

However, if we treat our bodies like trash, our spirits will suffer. Here are three quick ways to work on seeing yourself the way God has created you, as an integrated being:

1. Practice Giving Your Physical Self to the Lord

I already gave the example of sleep from the negative. Let’s think about the positive. What if you regularly integrated a “spiritual” practice like fasting in your life?

When you fast, what if whenever you felt physical hunger you simply prayed, “Lord, help me to hunger for you the way I hunger for food.” Without realizing it, you’re professing to your integrated body a bigger spiritual truth, “Man does not live by bread alone…” (Mt. 4:4, Deut. 8:3).

Bring your physical body to the Lord and recognize that He made it the way he did to help you know and depend on him. Realize how the physical world and the “spiritual” world are actually deeply intertwined, even within your own body.

2. Practice Allowing Your Emotions to Drive You to Christ

This isn’t a “follow your heart” type of advice. It’s the opposite! Realizing that the heart can be deceitful (Jer. 17:9), what if every time you felt a strong emotion you just brought this before the Lord? You’d see that your emotions are often indicators that something is off, missing, broken… and you know the God who can fix this!

Maybe there’s idolatry that once given to Christ gets removed (and you feel better). Maybe the emotion is true, and finding comfort in Christ brings balm to the soul. Allow what you’re feeling to be little reminders that God cares how you’re feeling, and can interact with your emotions.

3. Celebrate Your Uniqueness as an Expression of God

There are many ways you’re unique. Let’s take your culture. Your culture shapes you and influences how you spiritually interact with God (because you’re an integrated creature!). According to the Scriptures, God placed you where you live and grew up intentionally (Acts 17:26-27). Your culture likely highlights something unique about the beauty of God. So, see your culture as something that is trying to highlight to you and others the reality of our God.

Perhaps you grew up poor, so you understand the provision of God more than others (Gen. 22:14). Thank God that you know this aspect of Him.

Maybe your culture is meek. So was Jesus (Mt. 11:29). Celebrate this!

Perhaps your family was loud, joyful, celebratory. So is God (Zeph. 3:17).

Is there bad in our culture? Sure, just like there’s bad in our body, in our emotions, in our spirituality, etc. So, allow your culture to also remind you of the destination we’re headed towards. All of the “bad” of your culture will be erased. All of the beauty of your culture will be accentuated. And you will be an eternal living testimony to the beauty of our God!

Glory is Coming

We could give dozens of applications and examples. This week, simply try remembering this truth, you are more integrated than you think. For a whole sermon on this topic you can watch this sermon from me about spiritual warfare and deliverance.

 Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your body is separate from your soul, or that your culture is something that must die as you come to faith. Everything is integrated, and one day, by God’s grace, all of it, not just your soul, is going to be redeemed!

Praise God for this truth.

Christ in All,
Toriano Mayo