Monday, September 12, 2016
513 - Separation Anxiety
Spirituality Column No. 513
September 13, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Separation Anxiety
By Bob Walters
Trusting
the love and grace of Jesus Christ is our only way out – out of our fears, out
of our failures, out of our pride and out of this fallen world into the
glorious next.
Even as worldly
life may be momentarily calm, sin is never really absent. Hence it is wise and responsible to remain prayerfully
ever-vigilant knowing today’s comforts and peace are fleeting. Family and health issues pop up out of
nowhere. Each of us at any given instant
is this far from a misstep, a weak
moment, a self-inflicted calamity or even an innocent mistake of potentially
devastating impact.
Every day, society-wide spiritual menace
is staring Christians in the face.
Consider the overwhelming obeisance to a secular palette of false,
self-aggrandizing, spirit-crippling “truth” that corrupts politics, academia,
entertainment culture, media of every description and saddest of all, more than
a few churches. We are coached to
“believe” patently ungodly things. Satan
constantly queries of our faith, “How can you be sure?” Popular society’s “best and brightest” regularly
ridicule the notion of Godly, objective, eternal, righteous, accountable truth.
Our neighbor insists, “That’s only
your opinion.”
And I don’t buy any of it.
The one thing I believe is the
Bible; the one thing I know is Jesus Christ; the one influence I trust is the
Holy Spirit. And I know and trust that God
is always there, or here, or nearby or somewhere in the mix. Never, ever, do I think He is absent.
That is the strength of a Christian
walk – knowing we are not walking alone. How often we hear that sin “separates
us from God.” Well, I’m here to preach that sin is the very thing that must
draw us to God. And we are drawn to the
Father through Jesus Christ His Son whose mercy, compassion, love, forgiveness
and righteousness constitute our entire, unwavering and exclusive survival
system – our only hope – to endure
and overcome the inevitable sin in each of our lives. Want biblical proof?
See Genesis 3. What is God’s first move after Adam and Eve
sin … and they know they have sinned?
God goes and finds them, and curses
them, and tells them the road to come will be very difficult, and throws them
out of the Garden. But there are another
65 books in the Bible that prove God never abandons them … or us.
More proof? Jesus arrives. Go to Romans 8:31-38, “…nothing can separate us from the love of God.” Do you think Paul meant that? Knew that? I do.
I turned my back on God for much of
my life but when I turned back, God was there, Jesus embraced me and the Spirit
has led me.
Sin hasn’t left me, but I know God
never gives up.
Neither should we.
Walters
(rlwcom@aol.com), who figures people are far more likely to
leave us than God, “woke up” to Jesus in September 2001, 15 years ago.
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