Separation…….from Jesus……from God.
We all experience it. In the “Screwtape Letters”, C.S. Lewis describes our separation from God to be the ultimate goal of sin……..of Satan. We need to take a good hard look at separation. We need to study it closely because every last one of us is separated from God to one degree or the other. One of the goals of Christianity……one of the goals of this blog……is to diminish the amount of this separation from God in our culture as a whole. And we must begin with ourselves. We can’t really help others with their separation problem without understanding and battling with our own separation problem. This is a good working definition of hypocrisy.
So……. what does separation from God look like? I think that there are many different “flavors” of separation from God:
Never heard of Jesus
Never give Jesus a thought
Science worship
Hate Jesus
Don’t have time for Jesus
Disagree with the teaching of Jesus
Agree with Jesus….but just can’t keep up
Love Jesus but fail……every day
Never heard of Jesus. This is extremely rare. Far more common is mistaken understanding of his teaching. We can fight this by modeling love, studying the Bible, and gently teaching others.
Never give Jesus a thought. This is very common, even among those who identify as Christians. We just get busy and stay that way. We were meant to have an ongoing conversation with our creator……you can call it prayer. It should feel like an exchange with an intimate friend, someone who knows everything about you……because Jesus does. If you are thinking about something, God is interested.
Science worship. We test everything that comes into our consciousness against the tenets of current scientific thought. We ignore the gaps in this knowledge. We accept all of the assumptions and theories of science, including those that have no factual basis (the origin of life, the origin of the universe). Anything else, anything that science cannot explain we reject as myth whether it is true or not.
Hate Jesus. This is pretty rare. It is best described in Dawkin’s book. “The God delusion”. This is very scary. Because in order to hate God…..you must first recognize his existence.
Don’t have time for Jesus. This is a cousin to never giving him a thought. You recognize Jesus as God, but you are busy…..distracted. You go to church on Sunday, sing the songs, put a couple of dollars in the tray, and then say goodbye till next week. This is arguably the most common form of separation. You are a nominal Christian. But, you are missing out on the true power of Christianity.
Disagree with the teaching of Jesus. You start building your character by asking the wrong question. You ask, “do I approve of the teaching of Jesus…..of the Bible?”….. when you should be asking, “Is Jesus true, is the Bible true?” Because, if it’s true, then the fact that you don’t approve…….is irrelevant.
Agree with Jesus, but can’t keep up. There is a lot of stuff in the Bible. Let’s face it, it’s a huge book. The only way to learn this faith……the only way to “keep up”…..is to read the “owners manual”. And that is hard. If you don’t read the owners manual for your car, it’s not surprising that you haven’t read the Bible. There is an old saw.
How do you eat an elephant?……one bite at a time.
Read a little bit every day. Start with the book of John.
Love Jesus……but fail every day. Welcome to my world. Christianity is about love. Sounds simple, but it is not. In your thoughts and in your acts, you will fail every day. Don’t be discouraged. You are a human……not Jesus. Do the best you can and try to improve.
“The saints are just the sinners who fall down……and get up” Bob Carlyle
So……where are you? What flavor of separation do you live with?
Can you improve?
Can you do your bit……to lower the level of separation from God in our culture?
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul, Romans 8: 38-39
the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy (God). It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards will do the trick.
A demon explaining sin, C.S. Lewis, “The Screwtape Letters”