Leaving home to go to college a half hour away and later graduate school three hours away didn’t keep me from family holidays, celebrations, and even hospitalizations. Once work took me six and more hours away, though, that ability to visit became painfully limited. Things I took for granted growing up like sleepovers with grandparents and birthday parties with cousins became rare luxuries for my children. Being away changes things. You already know this if you’ve ever tried long-distance dating or had a close friend move. A great relationship can still be enjoyed, but it comes at a cost.
It takes intention, effort, and sacrifice for a relationship to survive a separation – which is how sin impacts our relationship with God.
After bringing sin into the world, the man and woman “hid themselves from the presence of the LORD” – before being driven out entirely (Gen. 3:8, 24 ESV). The first murderer likewise settled “away from the presence of the LORD” (Gen. 4:16). God explained the necessity of such separations after Israel worshiped idols while He was teaching them how to be His special people: “You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you” (Exo. 33:5). God is so pure and holy – and after all He has done, we are so rebellious and selfish. Coming into His glorious presence full of sin would burn us up faster than the sun.
Yet, that’s no shortcoming on God’s part. “Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear” (Isa. 59:1-2). Our sin separates us – but God desires “all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). In fact, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Even though we’ve gone so far away, His intention, effort, and sacrifice to still have a relationship with us is overwhelmingly clear.
What about ours? We must respond to what God has done to have a relationship. Doing otherwise – including doing nothing – is to stay away from God, now and forever. Because heaven isn’t the reward for “good people” while hell is the punishment for “bad people”. Heaven is made what it is by God’s presence – and hell by His absence (cf. Rev. 20:11-21:8). When Jesus comes again, it will be to bring everyone who belongs to Him into God’s presence forever (cf. 1 Thes. 4:13-18). If we don’t know God and refuse to obey the good news of Jesus, that life away from Him now will become an eternity “away from the presence of the Lord” (2 Thes. 1:8-9). Please don’t go there: it’s not where we are meant to be.
Explore more in our serious lesson series on Sin.