What can separate us

WHAT CAN SEPARATE US

God’s love created us and God’s love has joined us to Himself (John 3:16). But what is our experience of God’s love? Our experience will be one of being joined to God and his love or one of being separated from his love and even from God himself. We are going to look at why so many people feel separated from the love of God, and what the Bible says about the experience of being joined to God and his love.
Romans 8:35 What can ever separate us from the love of Christ? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow— No power in the sky above or in the earth below can separate us from God’s love—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
 ‘no power in the sky above or in the earth below’. 
God does not withdraw his loving, but we can withdraw our receiving of his love. What power causes this, when we just read that no power can separate us? The only power that can do this is the one that lies within us as it did in Adam, to separate ourselves, as we shall see. We are provoked in this by the power of our own desires, and by the power of darkness that seeks to blind our minds, or the bitterness of adversity that makes us feel uncared for. And that lies within us in our mind and heart, either by way of turning away from his love or by not having any inner basis for believing in his love.

Personal turning away
There is an Old Testament Scripture that speaks of God talking to his people about separating themselves through deliberate turning away.
Isaiah 59:2 But your iniquities have separated you from God; And your sins have hidden His face from you.
This separation was not from God’s point of view, but from theirs. His face is hidden from them only because they were pursuing their own desires and not God’s. The word iniquity means lawlessness – being a law unto one’s self. It is our face that turns away and we go where our face turns to (have you ever noticed that?)  It is being separated from letting the activity of God’s love flow in their life. 

Personal ignorance 
There is also the warning of separation through not knowing, not seeing and not hearing in the New Testament for us today.
Ephesians 4:17 don’t live like the Gentiles (ungodly unbelieving world) –who live in the futility of their minds, having their understanding darkened (not knowing), being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them (not hearing), because of the blindness of their heart (not seeing).
People who have no idea cannot receive God’s life and love. They are not separated from God (from God’s point of view,) but they are alienated from his life as an experience of being joined to him (that is sad). Their experience is separation from God. Mark 4:12 so that while seeing, they may see and not perceive, and while hearing, they may hear and not understand, otherwise they might return and be forgiven.
(The invisible gorilla and the wrong point of view having persuaded them to look for the wrong thing))

Personal disgruntlement
Magnifying negative circumstances – separation virus – just as widespread as the Corona virus - highly contagious – but it’s caught through negative talk and negative example. However there is a vaccine called being renewed in the spirit of the mind (repentance) and receiving faith.
Separation from the life of God is a mindset that was sown into the minds of Adam and Eve and into all of humanity. This causes us to magnify the negative or difficult things in our circumstances and get bitter and disillusioned and stop trusting God, which blocks us off from the consolation of God’s love and encouragement to stay the course in difficult times. 
We are living in a time of global distress and affliction and disappointment, and a lot of bitterness. The whole world sees chaos and disorder and confusion and uncertainty everywhere at this time – but the Scripture says;

Hebrews 2:8 … You have put all things in subjection under his feet… but at the present time, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him - but we see Jesus… (the invisible gorilla)

When we see Jesus with eyes of faith in the midst of all that is happening we are not separated from God’s love but are more single-mindedly joined to God, who is with us and loves us, and we see God in all that happens – we see all things working together for good and God reordering our lives and helping us to let go of the unnecessary and focus on the necessary etc. This is God’s big work in the earth today (Isaiah 28:21). This is the time to have a single mind and to focus with a single eye of faith and see the supernatural work of God bringing order out of chaos and joining people to himself through his love. 
We see victory instead of defeat, hope instead of despair, faith instead of fear. Nothing is separating us from his love. We are joined and not separated.
1Corinthians 6:7…He that is joined to the Lord is ONE SPIRIT.
We are able to see through all of this disorder and uncertainty and say we are well able to overcome. 
Joshua and Caleb saw the challenge of the giants that had to be defeated for them to be able to enter into the Promised Land and said ‘We are well able to overcome’. 

A little while after Israel finally entered the land after their forty year journey in the wilderness Joshua blesses Caleb – we made it Caleb! and invites him to have a say – A big shout out for Caleb… this is what Caleb said;
Joshua 14:6 The people of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal. Caleb spoke: "You'll remember what God said to Moses the man of God concerning you and me back at Kadesh Barnea. I was forty years old when Moses the servant of God sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land. And I brought back an honest and accurate report at Hebron with the huge branch full of grapes so big that it needed the two of us to carry it. the other spies discouraged the people, but I stayed the course, totally with God, my God. That was the day that Moses solemnly promised, 'The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance, you and your children's, forever. Yes, you have lived totally for God.' Now look at me: God has kept me alive, as he promised. It is now forty- five years since God spoke this word to Moses, years in which Israel wandered in the wilderness. And here I am today, eighty- five years old! I'm as strong as I was the day Moses sent me out. I'm as strong as ever in battle. So give me this mountain that God promised me. You yourself heard the report of what I said that day, when the Anakim giants were there with their great fortress cities –‘ We are well able to overcome’ - If God goes with me, I will drive them out, just as God said. "Joshua blessed him and he gave Hebron to Caleb as an inheritance.

Hebron was the city where Joshua and Caleb brought back the grapes and the good report. The word Hebron means joined together – the opposite to the word badal – which means separation . Hebron was the place of David’s royal residence where he was anointed king and began that royal line that joined  Jesus to his Kingly Heritage. Hebron was the home of Abraham where the three angels appeared to he and Sarah and announced his inheritance of becoming the father of many nations, joining God to his people Israel. 
God wants to give us our Hebron in these times of challenge – Nothing can separate us and like Caleb, we are well able to overcome.

In these days of pandemic the whole world is grieving the loss of so many elderly people and there is much care and compassion felt for them because of their vulnerability. It is a good thing that a younger generation feels this empathy and gives honour to their elders. But there is another side to this picture, and the eighty five year old Caleb is the message of hope and endurance, and fortitude and faith to all generations that follow on behind. I see daily in the eyes of many of my venerable (and often vulnerable) brothers and sisters the same message, the same report that Caleb gave of ‘Give me this mountain’. Yes there are giants in the Land but I have seen an inner strength in these people, won through faithfulness and patience and perseverance, and a wisdom that has aged like an oak tree. They remain as a shelter and a source of strength and loving comfort to the many younger people in their world, that they safeguard in their prayers and in their peaceful presence. This current Caleb generation is a is a sign board in these days that announces victory and not defeat. It is a testimony of God’s faithfulness.