21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your YOUR minds because of[a] your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. - Colossians 1:21-23 NIV
And the debate begins!
I have a wonderful husband. He is a great communicator. He has a brilliant, problem-solving, engineering mind. He loves to minister and tell people about Jesus Christ and the change that he brings to lives. All the great characteristics I admired and married.
Nevertheless, we disagree often.
Recently, he began to tell me that sin separated mankind from God. Ok... I get how that can be misconstrued... But I KNOW for a fact that God did not turn his back on mankind (NOTE: it was Adam and Eve that ran away from Him in the garden, not the other way around). Neither is sin itself the oil to God's water.
It is mankind that has calcified their OWN minds against God and HIS love for us.
Sin did NOT alienate us from God.... OUR OWN MINDS separate us from Him.
As long as we stay focused on sin, we will never reach the place of seeing Jesus. We need to see Him as the serpent lifted up on that cross. See him as the sin .... see sin dead... once and for all. (literally for all).
That, my friend, is the cure for our minds to finally be liberated from the bondage of guilt, shame, and false identification.
Once we pull out the 'shame, shame, shame' stick in order to gain leverage on our fellow human beings ... we have completely walked away from the true message of the Gospel and jumped back into the religious construct of systematic bondage that Jesus died to get us out of in the first place.
We are warned not to be "bewitched" by the system (Gal 3:1).
Once free... for goodness sakes.... STAY FREE!
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