It is impossible to be at peace with God if we are not at peace with ourselves. This is why integrity and honest living is so absolutely necessary.

We are told a number of different places in the Bible that it is not God who is standing apart from us, but rather that it is our sins that are in the way between us and God.

Consider Isaiah 59:1-2, ” Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God.”

God himself says, “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” Isaiah 1:18

He is saying, those sins of yours, the things you are ashamed of, the mistakes you’ve made, the actions you would rather forget about, bring them to me, don’t hide them behind your back.

When we have sins hidden behind our back we know about it. We cannot escape the fact that we are hiding things.

Our conscience is well aware that something is wrong.

But it is not so much the sin that is wrong, it is the fact that we are hiding the sin.

Christ came to take care of the sin. Sin no longer needs to hold any of us. This doesn’t mean that we will live perfect. What it means is that we no longer fear sin. We don’t cater to it; we don’t give it attention any longer.

Rather, we turn toward Christ with our sin in hand and turn it over to him. We give Christ our sin.

This is what he died for and why he came. If we do not take him on his word and deed then we are rejecting the cross and rejecting Christ.

Sin isn’t the problem any longer. Refusing to live in the grace of Christ is.