Chapter Four, A Reach Beyond Sin
God loves you.
These three words are the most transformative words you will ever hear in your lifetime.
Yet the love of God is so immense and so beyond measure that even those who believe in Him
and have accepted the gift of salvation often struggle to grasp its depth.
We wonder, how can God truly love me, especially when He knows the things I have done?
How could He love someone like me with all my flaws and failures?
These questions are akin to the words of King David thousands of years ago.
What is man that you are mindful of him?
The son of man that you care for him.
Psalm 8 verse 4.
What are we to God that He would even consider us?
How is it possible that the Almighty, Creator of the universe, would concern Himself with
our lives and circumstances?
As believers we accept that God loves us beyond our comprehension.
Otherwise, why would He send His Son to redeem us?
Is there something about mankind that makes us special to Him?
Indeed there is.
The key to understanding this is found in our origin.
Genesis chapter 1 tells us,
Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.
So God created man in His own image.
In the image of God He created him.
Male and female, He created them.
Unlike anything else in creation that had come before,
mankind was uniquely made in the very image of God.
We are His masterpiece, created with intention, love, and purpose.
In us, God did something unprecedented.
He made beings not only fearfully and wonderfully made,
Psalms 139 verse 14,
but fashioned to create His likeness,
beings who were made capable of direct fellowship with Him.
We are His children, His progeny.
We were formed with three dimensions, body, soul, and spirit,
reflecting the triune nature of God Himself.
He endowed us with reasoning, imagination, and creative ability.
He gave us the extraordinary gift of free will,
the ability to choose, and the capacity to love.
You are more than your physical body,
more than your talents or flaws,
more than your past or your present.
God sees the complete, redeemed, and perfected version of you,
and He saw it long before you took your first breath.
He knows everything about you, your strengths and weaknesses,
your victories and failures,
and He loves you fully and unconditionally.
My friend, God did not create you out of indifference or disinterest.
He formed you with a passionate love
and a desire for a relationship with you.
You were brought into existence to be part of His divine family,
to participate in and share the love that flows eternally
between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
You are a child of the Most High God,
lovingly known by Him before you were born,
and far more important to Him than you may have ever realized.
You are very much His child,
and He holds you in higher esteem than you hold yourself.
Although we were created from the dust of the earth,
God's plan for us goes far beyond our earthly nature.
He designed mankind to be more than physical beings.
He made us living vessels, temples of His Spirit,
meant to carry His own presence within us.
See 2 Corinthians 4, verse 7.
God's desire is to abide in us and through us,
transforming us from earthen vessels into reflections of His glory.
That's why the relationship He desires to have with you
is deeply personal and intimate.
His vision for your life is not wavered in the face of sin,
despite any poor choices you've made,
mistakes, or accusations of the enemy.
God loves you with a passion that transcends time,
and what He wants for you has never altered from the beginning.
I tell you again,
God's love is not conditional.
It is not based on your good deeds, your failures,
or anything you have or have not done.
It is constant, unchanging, and unrelenting.
So why does the reality of God's love feel distant or hidden at times?
The answer lies in the fall of man.
Adam and Eve began their lives in a perfect relationship with God.
They walked with Him, talked with Him,
and experienced His divine presence firsthand.
They were stewards of the earth,
enjoying the blessings of creation and the fullness of God's love.
They lived in complete harmony with their Creator,
unable to conceive anything of separation from Him.
But that possibility existed because God inherently allowed for choice.
Remember, true love cannot exist without free will.
So He endowed humanity with the power to choose.
power to choose him, or reject him.
Tragically, they mistakenly chose the latter.
The enemy, in the form of a serpent, tempted them with the same lies he had used to entice
a third of heaven's angels.
He whispered half-truths and subtle deceptions, implying that God was withholding something
from them, that they could be more apart from him than with him.
He implied that God had not been completely truthful, and that there was more to be gained
apart from him than in obedience to him.
These same strategies remain in his arsenal of deception today.
He contends that God is not faithful, or fair, or even real.
Whatever the argument, the bottom line is to deceive as many as possible into believing
that they do not need God.
This is what the world believes, that it has little or no use for the one true God.
At best, the enemy provides a distorted mockery of the Almighty.
He offers a multitude of substitutions or false gods, fashioned in warped images of
our Heavenly Father.
At worst, the world denies and ridicules his existence, disparaging and even seeking death
for those who put their trust in his true self.
In Eden, as now, there had to be a choice.
Ultimately, every person has to make a conscious decision as to whether he or she is going
to believe, trust, and follow the Creator, or not.
The first humans chose not to obey.
Eve was beguiled by an enemy in the form of a smooth-talking serpent, and Adam, though
not deceived, chose Eve over God.
That's how sin found its way into our world.
Their disobedience stained every human being who came after.
When they disobeyed, their decision had far-reaching consequences, not just for themselves, but
for all of humanity.
Sin bought shame, guilt, and separation from God.
It introduced fear and self-condemnation, distorting their understanding of the Creator's
love and their identity as his children.
Their failure was about more than disobedience, however.
In their rebellion, they did gain knowledge of good and evil, learning from bitter personal
experience what was right and what was wrong.
They learned the painful difference between truth and falsehood firsthand.
But it was a knowledge that came at so great a cost they couldn't even begin to imagine
the consequences.
With that knowledge also came many awful things they didn't anticipate, not the least of which
was self-condemnation and guilt.
Sin also gave access to something devastatingly detrimental—the accusing voice of the enemy.
The Bible tells us in Revelation 12, verse 10, that Satan is the accuser of the brethren.
He wasted no time reminding Adam and Eve of their failure.
Before God even confronted them, they judged themselves.
They felt unworthy, ashamed, and exposed, and hid themselves from God.
This was a marked contrast to the relationship they had previously enjoyed with him.
Genesis chapter 3 lays it out for us.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked.
So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as He was walking in the garden
in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
But the Lord God called to the man, Where are you?
He answered, I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.
Sin distorted their perception of God.
Where once they knew Him as loving and approachable, they now saw Him as a source of fear and judgment.
This distortion, a result of the sin that severed their connection to Him, also impaired
their ability to sense and receive His love.
It continues to do the same for many today.
Through their disobedience, Adam and Eve gained knowledge of good and evil, but at an excruciating
cost.
They lost their innocence, their peace, and their direct connection with God.
And as a consequence, we all became vulnerable to the accusing voice of an enemy who continually
reminds humanity of its failures and unworthiness.
Although they recognized their own unworthiness for they had disobeyed God, what they couldn't
understand in their sin, and what we, as sinful beings, have trouble comprehending today,
is God's ability to reach out beyond it.
Sin had enslaved them and separated them from their Heavenly Father.
They unwittingly exchanged the truth of God and their relationship with Him for separation
and distance, giving place to the enemy's lies and constant accusations.
Through the failure of disobedience, every subsequent generation of humanity gained a
certain knowledge of good and evil.
But knowledge without insight, to use it properly, is a curse.
What had been lost was divine wisdom.
And, knowledge without wisdom was as destructive a thing then as it is in our world today.
We live in a world where knowledge is easy to come by.
The internet has made access to information, and disinformation for that matter, ubiquitous.
But having knowledge and knowing what to do with that knowledge are two different things
entirely.
Sin didn't change God's love for us, but it obscured our ability to perceive and receive
His love.
This was the enemy's goal, to create a barrier between humanity and our Creator, to keep
us from knowing and trusting in our Heavenly Father's unchanging love.
As humanity fell, so did our ability to discern truth from lies, good from evil, and so much
more.
Sin clouds our judgment and blinds us to the truth of our Heavenly Father's love and provision.
The enemy tries to block our comprehension of God's ability and desire to reach beyond
the sin that separates us from Him.
Satan's lies ensnare us and keep us apart and unaware of God's true love and provision
for us.
This is what I call the first and foremost casualty of sin.
Although the fall of mankind was devastating for us, it did not take God by surprise.
He prepared in advance to send a Savior, His Son, Christ Jesus, to bridge the chasm that
sin had created between us and Himself.
Through Christ, God demonstrated His desire and ability to reach beyond sin.
He made a way for you to be reconciled back to Him, to walk in a restored relationship,
and to experience the fullness of His love once again.
God's love is relentless, His grace is sufficient, and His plan of redemption perfect.
All you need to do is accept it.
For in Him, there is no condemnation, only love that reaches beyond sin to cleanse, restore,
and redeem.
He will make you new.