There are many different things that can separate us from God. Any one of them creates the same problem for us--it blocks our intimacy with God and makes us feel far way from Him.
Of course, we want to fix that problem as soon as possible so that we can move back into close fellowship with our God. The problem is that most of the time we are at a loss as to how to fix it--we are not sure what to do to be restored to that place of intimacy.
That is why we want to take a look at four of the most common problems that separate us from God, and We will look at what to do to solve each problem. We will discuss two of them in this lesson and two in the next. The four problems are:
- Sin or Rebellion
- A False Sense Of Separation
- Failing To Draw Near To God
- Demonic Interference In Our Relationship With God
Sin Or Rebellion
Sin and disobedience both separate us from God. Isaiah 59:2 tells us, "Your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear."
When we do something wrong, and our behavior temporarily separates us from intimacy with God. This includes things like unforgiveness, disobedience and overt sin. We may or may not want to draw near to God in the midst of this. Either way, we find that we must deal with the thing that is separating us from God before we can get close to Him again.
If we have sinned, we need to change our behavior and stop sinning. That is easy in some cases and hard in others. There are some sins that we can just decide to stop doing, then we don't do them again. (The hard part is making the decision to give up the sin.)
But there are also times when a particular sin (called a besetting sin) has so much power over us that we can't stop no matter how hard we try. In those cases, we have to run to God and ask Him to deliver us from the power of that sin. Fortunately, He will do that for us when we ask Him to. The Holy Spirit lives inside of us; He changes us from the inside out and He breaks the power of that particular sin over our lives.
When we are separated from God because of disobedience, we have to change our behavior to start obeying Him. We might be doing something He has asked us to stop doing. Or our disobedience may go the other direction-- perhaps God has commanded us to do something we don't want to do, and we resist Him. It doesn't matter which form the disobedience takes--either way it is rebellion. Either way, it temporally separates us from God, and the only way to fix the problem is to start obeying Him again.
The good news is that God doesn't give up on us when we allow ourselves to become separated from Him because of rebellion or willful disobedience. He sends His Holy Spirit to work in our lives by convicting us. He tries to get us to change our behavior so we can be restored to a right relationship with God.
There is one more area of rebellion we have to discuss, the area of unforgiveness, resentment and offense. God has given us a very clear direction about that--He said, "don't do it." Look at Matthew 6:14-15:
"For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."
Ouch. That basically says that if we hold offense towards someone else, then our Heavenly Father is offended by our behavior.
That did not make sense to me at first, until one friend of mine did something bad to another of my close friends. Then I felt very offended at that person, not because of how they treated me, but because of how they treated my friend. I took personal offense at their action because they wronged one of my close friends, and I did not want to be friends with them anymore . (We did restore friendship later on, but the incident put a serious strain on our relationship for a while).
God is the same way. He is "friends" with all of us. So if we hold unforgiveness in our heart towards another, God takes offense at our attitude. We don't sabotage the other person by holding unforgiveness in our heart towards them, we sabotage ourselves and our intimacy with God. And the only way that we can get back in intimacy with God is by repenting of our unforgiveness and then by forgiving the person from the bottom of our heart.
A False Sense Of Separation
This is where it "feels" like we are separated from God when we really are not. This is often referred to as a "spiritual desert." It can feel this way for various reasons:
- God might be withdrawing the sense of His nearness to either test us or to teach us to walk by faith.
- The devil may be opposing us and trying to make us think we are separated from God so that we don't keep doing what He is doing (tearing down the devil's kingdom to build God's kingdom up).
- We may have allowed ourselves to become so run down or exhausted that our senses our dull, so that we can't hear His voice clearly or perceive His presence.
The course of action we need to take to fix the problem (feeling separated from God when we really are not) varies depending on what the cause of the problem is.
GOD WITHDRAWS THE SENSE OF HIS NEARNESS
If God is withdrawing the sense of His nearness, we must realize that He has not withdrawn from us or abandoned us. God had not moved away from us, it just feels that way, which means we must choose not to trust our feelings. Instead we trust and choose to believe what God has said in His word, the Bible.
If God intentionally withdraws the sense of His presence, He is either testing us or teaching us something (like how to stand in faith). Our best strategy is to cooperate with Him as best we can. We want to get through the lesson (or test) as fast as possible. We need to choose to stand firm in faith even when we can't feel the sense of His nearness. We need to remain faithful to do all that God has asked us to do even it feels like He is He feels far away. We need to remind ourselves that He is faithful and that He is loving. We need to take heart in the knowledge that this is just a temporary state and it is His will for us to once again walk in deep a sense of deep intimacy with Him.
ENEMY ATTACK
If the sense of separation comes because of a spiritual attack, we need to clothe ourselves in God's armor and stand firm, as per Ephesians 6:10-18. If we are strong enough, we need to engage in spiritual warfare to rebuke and break the enemy's attack off of us. If we are too weak to fight ourselves, then we should ask our friends to pray for us. We should also renew our commitment to serve God and proceed on the last clear direction that He gave us with determination and vigor.
RUN DOWN OR EXHAUSTED
When we are run down or exhausted, we get to the place can't think clearly and our senses get dull. That effects our ability to hear God's voice clearly and it makes it harder to perceive His nearness.
Common sense tells us that we can't maintain an effective intimacy relation with someone when we are barely able to function. That is true both in the natural and in our walk with God. It is extremely difficult to walk in close intimacy with God when we are exhausted and run down. That is why God created a Sabbath or day of rest. He knew that we can't be on the go all the time or we run ourselves down. He wanted us to both rest physically and draw near to Him. Many of us get so busy today serving God that we allow ourselves to run down to the point where it effects our interaction with God.
If our sense of separation comes from being worn out and exhausted, we need to rest and take care of ourselves. Then we will be in a better place both physically and emotionally to perceive God's nearness.
FALSE CONDEMNATION
False condemnation and rejection issues often try to enter into the picture when we have this false sense of separation from God. We may start to feel like God is mad at us even though we are not aware of any rebellion or unrepented sin in our lives. If the devil tells us lies to separate us from God, we need to fight back with God's truth. One way is to write down some Bible verses and quote them back to the devil when he tells us one of his lies. For instance, if he tells us that we ere too sinful and dirty to come to God, we might want to fight back with 1 John 1:7, which says, "The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin."
If you are struggling with condemnation issues, an good verse to start with is Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."
There are many different things that can separate us from God, and each of them has a different dynamic and requires a different "solution" so that we can draw near to God again. Those four things are:
- Sin or Rebellion
- A False Sense Of Separation
- Failing To Draw Near To God
- Demonic Interference In Our Relationship With God
We already looked at the first two in our last lesson, and now we will look at the remaining two.
Failing To Draw Near To God
Have you ever heard the expression: "It takes two to tango?" That means that a one-sided relationship can not work. It doesn't work in the natural, and it can't work in the spirit either. In fact, God puts it this way in James 4:8, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." If you want to be close to God, it is a two-person relationship. God will do His part to build the relationship, but only if we do ours.
There are a lot of things that can interfere in our drawing close to God. Sometimes we believe the devil's lies instead of believing God's truth. The devil tells us things like, "God is mad at you" or "God doesn't like you." We hear those lies an God gets scary to us, so we avoid Him instead of drawing near.
Sometimes God just doesn't feel that important to us an we give Him a very low priority on our time. Other times we just allow ourselves to get so busy that we don't have tie for God. Sometimes we just get lazy in our spiritual disciplines--we don't do our devotions as often as we should, we cut back on prayer and worship, etc. Other times we allow ourselves to be distracted by other things: the internet, television, social activities, etc.
This is a case where we can approach God, but we just don't want to.
For me personally, this is the biggest trap that I fall into. I work so hard that I get tired or run down, and I feel low on energy. Or at times I get overwhelmed with the demands of the ministry. When I am worn out, I don't have the energy to push in to my God. All I want to do with my spare time is to vegetate in front of the television. I love God with all of My heart and I don't mean to, but I find myself drifting slowly away from Him. After a while I come to my senses and I cry out something along the lines of, "Oh God, I don't want to be so far away from You.
Please draw near to me!" And God will usually reply with something like, "Now Teresa, who moved away from who? Did I move away from you, or did you move away from Me?"
The way that I get back close to God in those situations is a combination of forcing myself to pray and read His word and spend time listening to worship music, as well as weaning myself away from the thing that was eating up so much of my time. In addition, I cry out to God for mercy and ask Him to revive My spirit and to begin revealing more of Himself to me.
I have often noticed that I am usually much closer to God when I am on the mission field than when I am at home. I used to think that this was because I was being sent as God's representative, and that was why He drew me closer to Himself. But God corrected my misconception one day. I have this firm rule that when I am on a missions trip, I won't watch any television unless I am forced to (such as in Nigeria, where pretty much all socialization is done in the living room with the television turned on). There are often long periods where I don't have anything to occupy my time, and I put on my worship music and read the bible and talk to God. God meets me in wonderful ways because I am giving Him a large portion of my attention and priority.
One time when I was ending a missions trip, I told the Lord, "I hate for this trip to end because I hate for my special intimacy with You to end." God told me, "Teresa, it doesn't have to end. Just keep giving me as much time and priority at home as you do on the mission field, and I will continue to meet you just as deeply." I tried it when I got home, and God continued to meet me. But over time, I got caught up in things related to day to day life, and the time I spent with God began to decrease. The level of intimacy with God started to decrease as I put less time into the relationship.
If we want to be closer to God, we have to spend larger measures of our leisure time pursuing that relationship.
Demonic Separation
Some people hold the theology that believers can't be demonized. I used to believe that way myself until God showed me that I was demonized by a fantasy spirit and then He delivered me from it. I know I was a believer and I know I loved Jesus with all of my heart and I was fully committed to obey Him. But there were areas in my life where I struggled because this demon had control of them. The demon did not have control of all of me, but he had control of certain parts of my life, especially in the area of my imagination. There were things I struggled with and was powerless to overcome until I was delivered--then they suddenly had no more power over me.
The good news is that Jesus has given us power and authority over demons and over all the power of the enemy. If a believer is demonized, they don't have to stay that way. They can receive deliverance and authority prayer from other believers and be set completely and totally free from the demon's control.
Demons do not want their hosts to draw near to God, because they know that as a person gets closer to God, the demon is more likely to get detected and evicted. That is why demon's come up with a myriad of strategies to interfere in their host's ability to enter into intimacy with God. Some demons release a spirit of slumber over the person, so that they get groggy or sleepy whenever they try to read their bible, pray or worship. Others release a sense of fear or anxiety when their host tries to draw near to God. Others make their host sick--unusually a headache or an upset stomach. I remember one time I was ministering to a demonized person and they told me, "Every time that try to read my bible or listen to worship music, I get this terrible headache." That is a common demonic strategy. Other times demons make the idea of listening to worship music feel very repugnant to their host.
If you have been experiencing some of these type of things when you try to draw near to God, then perhaps you have a demon who is interfering with your intimacy with God. If that is the case, you have two options. The first option is to receive authority prayer from other believers. Many people find it easier and more effective in getting rid of demons when someone else prays for them. The other option is to rebuke the demon yourself and command it to leave you. (The next lesson contains a prayer that you may find helpful if you choose the second option.)
In short, if a demon is interfering with your intimacy with God, the way to fix that problem is to get rid of the demon. Fortunately, that is easy to do because Jesus has given us authority over demons.
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