No Separation

“The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love, he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival,” (Zephaniah 3:17).  

I spent most of my life believing I was separated from God because of my sins and I had to work to get back into his good graces. I grew up believing God was like my dad, he was ultra strict, quick to punish and someone to fear more than love.

     Scriptures like the one above, or Romans 8:35-39, which speaks of God’s amazing love, baffled me. How could God love me when I was so far removed from him?

     I did not understand incarnation. I did not realize that incarnation refers to God taking on flesh, and not just any flesh, but all carnal flesh. “In carnal flesh,” is how some define incarnation. I did not understand that Jesus came to show us we were not separated – at least on the part of God.

     God never separated himself from man; we turned our back on him. He never stopped loving us; we simply stopped loving him. We determined we didn’t need God and, because of his love for us, he never forced himself on us. We built the gap of separation and then we blamed the gap on him. We believed the lie that God was too holy to be in our presence. We believed the lie that God could not be in the presence of sin. Further, we fell for the lies that we are not good enough, or worthy or loved. This is not the gospel.

     The incarnation tells us the truth about God’s love. “For he so loved the world…” The gospel is not that we can receive Jesus into our lives; the amazing and good news of the gospel is that Jesus has received us into his life. He’s brought us into the relationship he lives and shares with the Father and the Spirit. The gospel – or good news – is that we are in a union with Christ. At the very core of our being is Jesus Christ, in union with us and with the world. The good news is that we are good, we are worthy, we are loved, we are already in Christ and he is in us.

     God became flesh (incarnation) so he could dwell among us (Emmanuel). No separation. That is Good News!  – Rick