Remember, Sinner, Spiritual

Word Definitions and Meanings

What do these words mean :
remember, sinner, spiritual,
self, soul, and spirit.

Remembering

to remember : To not be held hostage to the now. To be able to follow through on the greatness of past times, or to reject the sins of old when others repeat them today. To draw on the emotional impact of past love to help you through the dry times. If you do not remember, you cannot learn, and you are left unable to use the knowledge you might already have had. When Jesus broke the bread on that last supper with his disciples, he is reported to have said to do this "in rememberance of me". You can't follow a Christ you forget in your daily life.

You can also check the meaning of 'remember' in the dictionary.

What is a Sinner ?

sinner : in ordinary speech, it means someone who is deeply depraved, evil, bad. However, that's not what the Christian faith means by the word. In Christian belief, 'sinner' is not a moral description, but a relational one. Sin is the broken state of our relationship with God. There's a distance, a gap between us (with the rest of the created universe) and God, a distance far too wide for us to cross over, a distance bridged only by God's act of coming over onto our side of the gap through Jesus Christ (God-with-us) and the Spirit that Jesus sent in His place. The nicest, kindest, most virtuous of us is a sinner. The vilest, darthest, crookedest, most evil of us is a sinner. Everyone in between is a sinner. Each and all of these sinners are loved by God.

Perhaps it would be best to use a word which lacks the moralistic overtone of 'sinner'. That overtone undercuts the Christian message of grace for those on our human side of the divide. Yet, the words often put forward to replace it fail to catch enough of the negative quality of that divide : it is very very bad for us (in fact, deadly) and is far from what God wants for us. Because the broken relationship is so bad for us, it has profound and deep effects on all of us and all we do. It is a part of our identity and character (that which makes each of us who/what we are), whether we want it to be or not.

You can also check the meaning of 'sinner' in the dictionary.

What does ' spiritual ' mean ?

spiritual : regarding matters of the spirit(s) or matters that are sacred.

More than ever before, 'spiritual' has become the word of choice for vague, foggy, and shrouded things. To Christians, 'spiritual' means that which causes this world of 'stuff' or material to come alive, to move, to change or resist change, to take action (even when the action taken is deliberately not to take action). The spiritual realm underlies all that happens in the material world. The 'material' world is where the spiritual realm applies itself. The stuffly world is in turn, the meat and life-blood of the spiritual, and the spiritual is the life-force and thrust of the realm of substance. Thus, the two worlds are different angles of the same reality, not different realities.

One can be spiritual and not believe in Jesus as Christ. But it kinda misses the point : Christ was God's definitive act among humans. It's not that being spiritual does no good, it's just that without Christ, 'spiritual' has an untrue core to it. Being spiritual is not the key matter at hand; following Christ is.

You can also check the meaning of 'spiritual' in the dictionary.