No Separation, No Cutting Off, From Jesus, Our Rest and Light

It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die. (AA, pg 66)

You cannot be shut off from the Sunlight of the Spirit, no matter what you do, say, or even think, if you have been redeemed:
"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1: 7)

God is Light (1 John 1: 5), and because of all that Jesus has done, we are now in Christ (Ephesians 2:1-12)), and Christ is in us (Colossians 1: 27).

In fact, God is faithful and just to forgive us because of all that Jesus has done, a righteous foundation to take sinful man dead in his trespasses and cause him to live and reign in life.

This terrible teaching forced me into a state of bondage for much of life.

The next phrase in the book was equally distressing:

If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison.

I have met countless men and women  who "worked the AA program", and definitively I can tell you that they were very angry,  unpleasant, bitter people.

The notion that we must be "free of angry" is both impossible as well as immoral.

For me, like many people who "painstakingly follow" the program, they end up living a crippled life where just about anything can offend them. Like many "alcoholics", I became very self-centered and introspective, always trying to make sure that I did not get angry, or if I did get angry, I would go out of my way, doing everything that I could to make sure that I "got rid of this upset."

Yet with all of these personal accounts, which in their own right reveal the painful frustration of trying to work "the Twelve Steps", the Bible is crystal clear about our new standing in Christ, one which has nothing to do with us, and which we can do nothing to change:

"8But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him" (Romnas 5: 8-9)

and

"37Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8":"37-39)

Nothing can separate us from God, not one thing. Not our feelings, not our thoughts, not our circumstances, for God has placed above the heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 2: 6) not because of anything that we have done, but because of grace, which we receive through faith in all that Jesus has done for us at the Cross (Ephesians 2: 4-8)

The New Covenant could not make it any clearer:

"10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. 12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12)

and

"Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." (Hebrews 13: 5)

There is no qualification or exception to this verse, not even our sin, because He has remembered all of our sins in Christ Jesus, so that He does not remember our sins anymore in us, or in the world, for that matter:

"To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation." (2 Corinthians 5: 19)

We receive rest from trying to make ourselves right before God, and so Jesus gives us Himself, brings us together with Himself:

"28Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)

and

"11Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. " (Hebrews 4: 11)

Our sins, our stances, or circumstances, our very selves, for all our upsets and wranglings in the flesh, cannot separate us from God.

The only unrest, then, that remains for the believer, is to believe that we are not one with God, that He is not pleased with us, that He has not been appeased for all of our sins and trespasses, or even the false notion that our feelings can "cut us off form the Sunlight of the Spirit."

Jesus is the Light of the World (John 8: 12), we are in Christ, and our sin, our doubts, our feelings, our anything cannot remove us.

Embrace this blessed truth. Do not be covetous, but be content, for the One who can freely give  us all things is with you, and will never leave  you nor forsake you!