A liminal state is defined as being in a between state, the already, but not yet. You are betwixt and between, in a threshold, not totally in one room or another. One foot in one place and the other in another. This is where Christians live their lives, in the between time of already justified but not yet glorified. We are returning prodigals, we have come home for forgiveness, and the father has already purposed to kill the fatted calf, and throw the party, but we have yet to taste the tender meat in our mouths and to feel the robe on our shoulders, and the warm metal of our fathers ring on our hand and know that we are finally home. It is here we live, and here we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, hopefully expectant to experience what has been promised, yet all the while feeling the cold, reality that we have yet to completely cross the threshold into the eternal reality of a forever with Christ. We live seeing glimpses of God’s hand in the midst of our own personal struggles and faults. We revel in Christ’s saving work, while fighting off the nagging realities of these frail and failing bodies. It is here we must purpose to live with our eyes fixed on the future, while understanding that our present is real, and there are others here who have a very different reality, they are in a liminal state that the apostle Paul called “dead in their transgressions and sins” and we are here to sound the alarm that there is another threshold, another door, another way! To proclaim to them that the Son of God came as a man, lived a perfect life, died a sinner’s death, and raised from the dead so that we might be reconciled to God. Then we get to watch as God draws many unto himself to stand with us in this liminal state.