We just finished up a week of Vacation Bible School at our church and y’all… I’m tired! We averaged 180 kids each night, we had about 100 volunteers, and an engaging guest speaker at our Friday finale. It was an absolute blast! Even though I came home tired, sore, and ears ringing each night, I would do it again in a heartbeat. Just as long as they wait till next summer and not next week.
As mentioned, the guest speaker was fun and engaging! But… we drove home that night a bit discouraged. We had to take some time with the kids to do what we call damage control due to a statement that was made a few times in the lesson. If you’ve been in or around religious circles, you might have heard it a time or two as well.
Sin, all the bad things we do, separates us from God.
It sounds logical, doesn’t it? It sounds like it’s a true, religious statement. And for a time, it was a reality. But does sin really separate us from God now? If so, we’re all doomed! There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t have some type of failure, not to mention all the actions and inactions that highlight my fallen, human nature.
And that kind of statement doesn’t end there. No, it’s just the beginning. This is how so many people come up with the belief that God can’t hear our prayers if there’s sin in our life (I heard that from a pastor in Alaska). If that were true, how would anyone ever come to salvation? We have all sinned and fallen short of what is required (Romans 3:23).
It’s not enough to look at these types of religious statements from a logical point of view. We have to discover what scripture tells us.
He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. Psalm 103:12 NLT
This passage has healed a great deal of hurt, shame, and condemnation in my life. Not carrying the broken pieces of my own choices has afforded me freedom that I never thought possible. All because Jesus took every broken part of me to the cross (I Peter 2:24).
If this hadn’t been explained to you before, there’s significance in the use of the east and west – they never meet! If you start walking east, you’ll never reach a point that your direction becomes west. Now, if you were to walk north, once you walk past the north pole, your direction will then be south. The distance between the east and the west is infinite!
Another scripture tells us that God chooses to not remember our sins (Jeremiah 31:34, Hebrews 8:12). Ever! It’s not a short-lived pardon till we mess up again. We’ve been so thoroughly forgiven that our sins can never circle back on us. They can never condemn us. If we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we can never be judged for our sins either.
I stated that I no longer carry the broken pieces – all of my failures, all of my shortcomings – and it’s 100% because Jesus carried them all to the cross. But Jesus didn’t just die for those who would accept Him – He died for the sins of the entire world for all time (I John 2:2). Our sins, all the things we do wrong (whether we realize it or not), are not being counted against us (II Corinthian 5:19). They are not separating us from God!
If any person, no matter their title or position, ever labels sin as something that still stands between mankind and God, they do not understand the magnitude of Jesus’ sacrifice.
Now let me reveal a little something that I struggle with from time to time, because as I read and reread what I’ve expressed in this post so far, I have to admit that I don’t understand the magnitude of Jesus’ sacrifice. I’m not sure anyone fully does. I certainly do not believe that sin separates us from God, but there are times that my faith falters because I can’t seem to stop dwelling a bit too long on how I blow it.
There have been times that I struggled to understand my blood-bought identity. I still do from time to time. It typically manifests as shame, or unworthiness, and even condemnation. I mess up and then I mentally beat myself up. I hear what the enemy is saying about me, and I neglect to believe what my Father says about me. But there is always hope.
As I continue with each day, week, month, year… getting a little better all the time in walking in my identity as a child of God, I have started to realize that I’m not called to try to be something better than I once was. I’m to rest in the realization that I was made new. My new self has nothing to do with what I can or cannot do but is all about what Jesus already did. It’s not my faithfulness to go through life perfectly (we all know that’s impossible!), but it is all about His faithfulness for all eternity.
If we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we have been made a new creation (II Corinthians 5:17), redeemed from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13), and sealed with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14). Even when we are faithless, He remains faithful (II Timothy 2:13).
Jesus already dealt with all sin for all time for the whole world – and it’s time we acted like it. It’s time we stopped focusing on sin and started focusing on Jesus.
But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image. II Corinthians 3:16-18 NLT