Separation from Sin

          Seeing ourselves from heaven's perspective:  MAIN HEALING LESSON 5

This teaching on how God sees us as separate from our sins is just one of the 24 lessons in our workbook for personal transformation, "Matters of the Heart."  All 24 lessons will be helpful to the person seeking restoration and freedom and have been posted on this web site. They are available as a complete set in our workbook which can be purchased as a download or ordered through the mail. The lessons are also available on CD and DVD as 24, 1/2 hour teachings. All scriptures are from the NKJV unless otherwise noted.
 

Introduction

In the previous lesson we studied the rebel army and saw that its members work to bring us into agreement with their false world view and participate in their sinful rebellion. Since sin is so intimately connected with so much that we may say or do, including our emotional life, it is very easy to fall into the snare of looking at ourselves and others, seeing the sins, and going into judgment. Separation from sin at that level almost seems like an impossible dream. How does God keep His own great heart clear of holding sins against us? If we can see His way, we will see the way for our own hearts to live free of holding judgments. We have already seen that the Father’s glory is His mercy (Exodus 34:7) and that He doesn’t count our sins against us (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). Now let us see the way that He looks upon us.
 

Teaching summary

Our loving God actually sees us as separate from our sins. He can see sin in us all day long and still see the person we are as separate from those sins—even sins of attitude and emotion, even the desire to sin that dwells so powerfully in us at times. 

If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.    Romans 7:16-20

Whenever scripture, like a parent, repeats something, it just may be that we need to pay attention! Paul states it twice: “it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.” This is not Flip Wilson saying, “The devil made me do it.” We are not being asked to abandon our responsibility for sin being in us when we do it. But we are being shown from heaven’s perspective that we are not our sins. No one is—no living human. The enemy and his kingdom have indeed become their sins, with no possibility of (or desire for) repentance and separation from them; and those who never repent, the unredeemed who die in their sins, cannot be separated from them. But we can and do repent. The very fact that we repent of sin shows that it is a foreign invader in our lives—not who we really are. 

God can see every moment in time at all times
He is able to look upon us and always keep in mind three things about us: who He created us to be, who we will be in heaven and who we really are even now deep down in Christ. 

1) He fashioned us in our mother’s womb and He dreamed us up before time began (Isaiah 49:15). Since He is not the author of sin in us, His perfect vision still holds the image of who we really are before the fallen nature got attached to us and before generational sins or our own wrong choices began to have their effect. Separation from sin is how we were created.

2) Not only that, but our Redeemer has 20/20 future vision and can always see who we are being redeemed to become as He draws us out of darkness into His light through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and our own belief in the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Peter 2:9). Separation from sin will be fully accomplished in heaven.

3) But His vision extends beyond the past and our future and sees deep within that there is a new creation in us and He knows (and wants us to know) that this is who we really are now, despite any stubborn, but temporary, agreements we may have with sin. We are not the old nature, we are not our sins, we are not our negative emotions: we are a new creation. Separation from sin is what our new birth and God's justification of us through the blood of Christ have done for us right now!

Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!   2 Corinthians 5:17 AMP



Why is this so hard to get?

When God created everything that exists, He declared that everything He created was good. But with Adam, He saw that Adam was “very good (Ge 1:31).” So are you. So is your body. So is your mind. So is your new heart. So is your renewed spirit. However, when we allow sin to enter into our way of thinking, speaking and acting we are letting something not good dwell within us.

Three times in scripture we are shown how the Lord sees us as separate from the sin that dwells in us. The first was God questioning Adam about who he was “listening” to (Genesis 3:10). The second time was Jesus rebuking Satan from speaking through Peter (Matthew 16:22-23). A third time came when Jesus rebuked the “sons of thunder” for wanting to call fire down on a village that had rejected Him.

Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, "Where are you?" So he said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself." And He said, "Who told you that you were naked?” Genesis 3:9-11

But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men."  Matthew 16:23

But He turned and rebuked them [James and John], and said, "You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.” Luke 9:55

Like Adam and Peter, James and John, we may not even realize that some of what seems like our “best” ideas may actually be coming from the evil one and his kingdom—disguised as our own thoughts! None of them were possessed, but they were letting Satan speak into them and through them. Discern the voices: who am I listening to and letting speak through me?
   
The real you has been created good and is redeemed good, but the old man is not (Romans 7:18). God always makes that separation and we can learn to do it too. Separate yourself and others from the sin that dwells within. Because of the reconciliation won for us by Christ (2 Corinthians 5:18-21), God does not separate Himself from us—only from our sins. Our sins break our fellowship with Him—not His with us.

Therefore, we can confidently go to God with our sin still within us, knowing that He will receive us, accept us, love us and help us—all the while keeping us covered by the blood of Christ as He cleanses us. This is why He tells us to be bold in coming—He knows that many times we will have to come still covered with sin and need to be cleaned up on arrival!          

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.   Hebrews 4:16



A tug of war within us

The reason we need so much cleansing is due to the law of sin warring in our members with the new law of Christ (Romans 7:22-25). This law of sin is the teaching of Satan in us (John 8:44-46). It was “our father” the devil who taught us (for example) that holding on to bitterness is better than letting go or that being anxious is better than trusting God.

The truth is that everyone who sins has been blinded and deceived by an enemy. In compassion God gives repentance so that we may know the truth, come to our senses and separate ourselves from our sins and the enemy’s snares with God’s help. Let this grow mercy in you for others!

And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.   2 Timothy 2:24-26

One goal of effective spiritual warfare is to expose the real enemy, to reveal the true battleground.  The real enemy is not your body, not really the disease, not the depression, not the addiction, not the people who may have harmed you, not the people who led you astray. The real enemies are those spiritual powers of darkness whose thoughts masquerade as our own in order to tempt us to think, speak and act to serve their own purposes.

When we allow that which is sin to enter our hearts in such ways we are actually fellowshipping with evil beings and establishing Satan’s kingdom on earth by doing his will instead of God’s. By separating people from the one who has carried them captive into sin (ourselves included), we can focus our righteous indignation on the enemy and his kingdom where God keeps His anger and wrath focused. Certainly Jesus hates the wickedness of the enemy’s kingdom.

You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions.   Psalms 45:7

We, too, need to develop a perfect hatred for sin, as the Psalmist did, and yet remember who the real enemy is under the conditions of our new covenant. Shift the hate and blame from people to the one who enslaves them to do his will (2 Timothy 2:26).

Do I not hate them, O LORD, who hate You? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.   Psalms 139:21-22

When we refuse to forgive someone as the law of Christ commands, we are saying to Jesus: “I don’t believe your law is right. I believe the law of bitterness is better.” To this God may well ask, “Who told you that?” Through mercy based intercession and by forgiving love we are to loose people from their sins and bind the real enemy. But when we bind people to their sins, we loose the real enemy! Remember: we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the invisible powers of evil. Stay focused: love God, love people, hate the real enemy!

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.   Ephesians 6:12 

Separation is a process of discernment and recognition
Learn to discern the presence of sinful heart attitudes in you. Separate yourself from what is not you. The good is Christ in you joined to the New Creation that you already are and are becoming (2 Corinthians 5:17; Colossians 1:27). The evil comes from the enemy. Stay in agreement with God and not the devil about who you are and about who others are.

Learn to see everyone as separate from their sins
—including yourself!
 

Interested in going deeper?

Don't just give these truths a "head bob"!
For further study and for help working these truths into your heart and life, see Separation from Sin part 2 (Head to Heart Guide 5) and "work out" with exercises, discussion questions, review of main points, digging deeper, more scriptures, model prayers, renunciations/affirmations and practical steps of life application.

Or better yet, let us minister to you in person
     --at one of our Savannah Seminars...