Most of us know someone that we really don’t want to spend time with in the same room. There is a clash of personalities or a difference of opinion that gets expressed in an offensive way. And when you see that person you feel like heading to the door. You avoid them. Or maybe they have offended you in some deep manner with words or deeds, and forgiveness has happened, but you have chosen not to associate with them. So they show up and you leave.
We can love people without liking them or their actions. We can deeply desire God’s best for them without inviting them into our homes. Love doesn’t mean friendship. I have no desire to meet almost any famous people. There isn’t one sports star, entertainment personality, or political figure that I really want to meet. In fact, I have avoided and will probably continue to avoid opportunities when they arise.
Oil and water cannot be mixed. You put them in the same glass and after a few minutes they would each occupy their own layer. They would separate automatically and predictably. The only way to get them to mix is by adding an emulsifier to the mix. This third compound then changes the way the electrons align at the molecular level and the two can stay together. Otherwise they will separate. The electrical forces at the molecular level force them apart.
Jesus came to separate us from our sin. He came to not just removed the penalty for the sin, but to get sin out of our lives. He came, not to just give us a bath, but to clean us to the point that we no longer need a bath. None of us gets there before we die, but that is His design. We are to be like Him, and He has no sin.
Sin and the Jesus-follower should not be in the same room, let alone the same life. I know you are thinking to yourself, but that isn’t my reality. I see the sin in me. I know my struggles. If I am a Jesus-follower, why is there sin? Two things are at work.
First Jesus separates us from our sin and the eternal consequences of that sin. Then Jesus works the process of cleaning us up throughout the rest of our life. That is why John says that those who follow Him can’t remain in a life of sin. Sin can’t become the everyday desire and practice of someone who claims that Jesus has worked and is working in their lives. Our lives must change over time, change in His direction. If that process isn’t at work in us, if we don’t feel the pull and tug of the Holy Spirit, if we don’t yield to this influence, we can rightly question whether we are His.
Our whole lives will be a mixture of oil and water. Over time there is less and less of the oil of sin, and purer and purer water. When we submit to this process and put obedience into practice in our lives, we become what He meant us to be in the first place. We get the best of this life, and the life to come. What could be better than this?
The Arnold Journey 