Have you ever heard that when you sin, you are no longer in
fellowship with God? It was one of the
most common teachings I heard growing up in church, as well as with the
Christian organization I was involved with in college.
The picture painted was that your sin put up
a barrier between you and God so that He couldn’t be close to you or bless you. In fact, He might even punish you by making bad
things happen in your life until you got right with Him again.
The solution always given was for you to confess your sins
to God and to be very sincere about it so that God would know you really meant
it! Then, you could be assured that you
were forgiven again. That resulted in you being back in fellowship with God. However for years, I often wondered if I had
convinced God that I was sincere enough to be forgiven.
The idea that a Christian can break fellowship with God comes
from an Old Covenant mindset that if you will obey God, He will get close to
you; but, if you don’t, He will turn away from you. See Deuteronomy 28.
The good news is that none of that is true since we are
people under the New Covenant. Here is
why:
1. We are united to God. You can’t get any closer to God than that and
sin doesn’t break that union. 1
Corinthians 6:17
2. All your sins are already forgiven whether you
confess them or not. See Colossians 2:13
and Ephesians 4:31-32. (Though it’s fine
and probably healthy to tell God when you sin, that doesn’t get you more of His
forgiveness.)
3. We are not under the law of blessing and cursing
laid out in the Old Covenant. We are
already blessed to the max with every spiritual blessing in Christ, according
to Ephesians 1:3.
The word for fellowship in the New Testament is the word we
use today for intimacy. John wanted the
people he wrote to enjoy this intimacy just as he did. 1 John 1:3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may
have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his
Son, Jesus Christ.
When we sin, we do not lose our fellowship with God, that is,
our intimacy with God. It’s impossible because
Jesus has finished everything required by the Father to get us into fellowship with
Him and to keep us there. It’s totally
based on Jesus’ performance on the cross, not ours.
Believe it! It's the Gospel.
Live Free In Christ,
Mark Maulding, President and Founder
www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!
