I recently wrote an article entitled “Hope for 2020 and Beyond”, which offered encouragement for those who may find themselves discouraged going into 2020. As I started thinking about the reasons that we get discouraged, I was reminded of an article I wrote almost a year ago concerning how we can sometimes feel separated from God and His love even though that is never true. As this is very relevant to what I wrote about concerning hope, I decided to revisit the issue of feeling separated from God and expand a little on what I previously wrote about it.
Romans 8
38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,
39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Have you ever felt separated from the love of God? I sure have and I bet you have too. Maybe you feel that way right now. But nothing can separate us from His love. So why do we sometimes feel that way?
What makes us feel that way is sin and it makes us feel separated from His love in two different ways.
First of all, sin keeps us from having a right relationship with God.
Paul said that nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. A key part of that verse is “which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. In John 14:6, Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no one comes to the Father, except by me”. Jesus is the only way to the Father and, if you do not have a personal relationship with Jesus, then you do not have a personal relationship with God.
If I pass a random stranger walking down the sidewalk or in the isle at Walmart, do they feel love from me? Of course not. Why would they? They don’t even know me.
Does my seven year old boy, Nathan, feel love from me? Sure he does. He is my child. When something happens that upsets him, his mom or I are the first people he runs to, even if whatever happened is his fault (which it often is), because he knows there is nothing he can do which will make us not love him. He has learned this through all the experiences that he has had as our child. Through the parent-child relationship, we have shown him love and he has recognized and received that love. Of course, our relationship with Nathan has been vital in this process.
It’s the same way with God. If you do not have a relationship with His Son, Jesus, then you do not have a relationship with Him and so He has no means of effectively communicating His love for you. So, of course, you do not feel it. If that is the case for you, begin to pursue a relationship with Him so that He can show you the love that He already feels for you.
If you already have a relationship with Him, unrepentant sin will keep that relationship from being as close as it should be. Again, this type of thing is seen in every day human relationships. Did you ever have a serious disagreement with your spouse or best friend or parent? In the midst of that, did you still love them and did they still love you? Yes, of course. Though the strength of the love was not diminished, did each of you feel that love in the same way? Probably not. In that disagreement, each of you probably felt that you were right, for your own reasons, and the fact that the other side was not willing to relent probably felt unjust and maybe even hurtful. So, it’s no wonder that the love wasn’t felt as strongly during that season of conflict.
It’s the same way with God, sort of. When we sin against God, it’s not really the same kind of disagreement, though it can feel like it from our side of the relationship. We still can feel the same sense of alienation and lack of closeness as in disagreements with other people. However, there is one huge difference. When we disagree with God, it is never He who is wrong and His feelings of love, from His prospective, don’t change at all.
Let me take a minute here to talk about sin. I do want to be encouraging but I do not want to minimize the impact of sin in our life. Sin separates us from God (Isaiah 59:2). Sin is a huge deal to God. If we want to have a close relationship with God, we have to repent, to turn from our sin. This doesn’t mean that we have to be perfect. We cannot be perfect, we cannot meet God’s standard of righteousness (see Romans 3:10 and 3:23) and this is still true, even after salvation. We should not beat our head against a wall, trying to be good enough. If we have sin that we’re having a hard time getting a handle on, that absolutely does not mean that God does not love us. However, we should not try to kid ourselves that unrepentant sin does not negatively impact our relationship with God because it absolutely does. The importance of repentance to God is a theme that runs throughout scripture in both the Old and New Testament (Mark 1:15, Luke 13:3, Acts 2:38, Acts 3:19, Psalms 32:5, Psalms 41:4, Psalms 69:5, just to name a few). Even Christians still struggle with sin but we must see our sin for what it is, an abomination before a completely holy God. We must truly be remorseful to God and always strive to turn from sin. We must realize that the only way that we can be reconciled with God is through the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf.
Having said that, we must also recognize the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice.
Romans 5
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Even in the midst of all of our sin and depravity, God loved us enough to send Jesus to take the punishment for our sin on our behalf.
As if that isn’t enough, Jesus loved us enough to very willingly go along with the Father’s plan. Speaking of His own life, in John 10:18, Jesus said “No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” In Matthew 26:53, just before His trial, Jesus said to Peter “do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels?” In John 19:11, Jesus told Pilate “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above”. Clearly, by His own admission, He could have stopped what was about to happen but He loved us so much that He willingly went through with it.
He still loves us that much. If you haven’t yet formed a relationship with Him, no matter what you may have done, He suffered and died for you and He did that so that you could have a relationship with Him. If you do already know Him, no matter what sin you may currently struggle with, He wants that relationship to be a close one. No one who loves you enough to willingly do what He did for you would turn His back on you. We sometimes forget that.
This brings me to the second way that sin makes us feel separated from God’s love, guilt.
Every last one of us have things in our past that we are not proud of or are even deeply ashamed of. That isn’t entirely bad. A little guilt can be good because it can aid in repentance. A little shame can motivate us not to make the same shameful mistake again. However, too much guilt and shame often drags us down and causes us not to rejoice in the freedom that we have found in Christ or keeps us from seeking that freedom in the first place. That is truly tragic and it is certainly the last thing God wants for us because it keeps us from a close relationship with Him or keeps us from having a relationship with Him at all. We need to lay down that baggage.
Here is some Scripture to keep in mind concerning this.
Romans 7
14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.
15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.
Paul wrote this, speaking of himself. Paul is probably the greatest evangelist to have ever lived. No one can argue the point that God used Paul in very mighty ways. Paul hated sin, he preached against sin, and yet he struggled with sin. So, if you struggle with it too, you are in good company and that sin certainly doesn’t have to drag you down and keep you from enjoying a loving relationship with God, feeling His love, and serving Him by passing on that love.
Here is why.
Romans 8
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,
4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Here is the Scott Duck translation of that passage:
“Absolutely no one is good enough to meet God’s standards of righteousness. We don’t have to because Jesus met that standard Himself and then took the punishment for us not meeting it. So, when God looks at us who are His children, He doesn’t see our sin. Rather, He sees the righteousness of Christ.”
So, we should quit beating ourselves up for not paying the bill that we could never pay but that He already paid. We should embrace the wonderful freedom that we have or can have in Him, freedom from sin, freedom from guilt, freedom from hopelessness.
Absolutely nothing can separate us from His love but many things can separate us from feeling that love and abiding in it. We must choose to turn from our sin and accept the gift that He already payed for long ago, in order to establish a relationship with Him. We must choose to do our absolute best to remain repentant, in order to keep that relationship as close as it needs to be. We must choose to stop trying to pay a bill that He already paid. We must choose these things. He won’t choose for us. As in all relationships, establishing and maintaining the relationship is dependent on actions on both sides. God has already done what He needs to do. Have you?
