Speaker 1Hello, welcome to Day 16, Intimacy 30, and I want to believe that the teachings have been a blessing to you, I've gotten quite a number of feedback reports on how much of a blessing it's been to you, I want to encourage you, share with me your testimonies, what the Lord has done, how much you've been blessed listening to these things, you can drop a comment there, and if you feel the need to particularly share a definitive testimony with me, my email address, pastorayo at ayoajani.com, I'd love to hear from you, to know what the Lord is doing in your life. Now I want to start teaching on the five hindrances to intimacy, hindrances, or let's just say hindrances to intimacy, even though I've listed five, but we just want to look at those gamut of things that create that hindrance in developing intimacy with the Lord. Now here is the big one, it is the biggest, it is arguably the worst of them all, and it is called sin consciousness. Now sin consciousness reflects in several ways, it reflects as shame, it reflects as guilt, it reflects as fear, it reflects as condemnation, and self-doubt. I want you to observe the five ways, now we generally use the word condemnation to describe the intense emotion that comes with sin consciousness, but really and truly condemnation is one of the symptoms of sin consciousness, so I'll go through them again, shame, guilt, fear, condemnation, and self-doubt. Now these five things are powerful enough to cripple the most talented human on the face of the earth. They are powerful enough to stop the most anointed man on the face of the earth, powerful enough to to cripple the most gifted individual on the face of the earth. Shame, guilt, fear, condemnation, and then sin. Self-doubt. The Bible teaches that when Jesus died on the cross, not only did he wash away our sins, he washed our conscience. Your conscience is the place of your consciousness. And so the Bible tells us in Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 14, it tells us that Jesus Christ by his blood purged our conscience from dead work. So it's not enough for your sins to be forgiven, it is important that the consciousness of sin be purged out. In fact, the Lord put it this way for me. He said, if you study through the book of Romans, there are three things you'd note. There is the nature of sin, there is the action of sin, and there is the consciousness of sin. And the Lord said to me, Jesus dealt with the nature of sin. Okay, the actions of sin, which are a product of the nature of sin, is already dealt with apparently. He said, but if the consciousness of sin remains, it will reproduce the effects of the nature, and eventually the consequences of sin will be reproduced. And so the Lord said, if you actions. So the consciousness of sin, which we put in another way, sin consciousness, it is the biggest issue that the believer has to face on this side of eternity. And by extension, it affects and cripples our relationship with the Lord. You see that in Genesis chapter 3. You see how that God comes to Adam, to fellowship with Adam in the cool of the day. God would come and that intimacy, you basically who stimulates intimacy. No, it's the obsession and the desire of God for you. All right, that caused God to do all that he did just because he wanted a fellowship and intimacy with you, and then created that desire, that strong desire inside your heart. Now we see that God going in the cool of the day to speak with Adam, to fellowship with Adam and Eve. But what was the response? Genesis chapter 3 and verse 10. He says, and he said, now we're from verse 9. Well, we can read from verse 8 to give you context. He says that they heard the voice of the Lord. This is right after their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked. All right. They had sinned against the Lord. They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and Adam and his wife hid themselves. I want you to see the first natural response to the presence of God. They hid themselves from the presence of the Holy God. His presence convicts. You know, when Isaiah saw the Lord, he said, I'm a man of unclean lips. Imagine he had prophesied Isaiah chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 5. Then he gets to chapter 6. After having such a powerful ministry, a prophetic ministry in his encounter with the Lord, literally he came face to face with his mortality and face to face with his And then he said, I'm a man of unclean lips. And you know what happened? God took coals, the angels took coals and then purged his tongue. But here's where I'm going to, that when man in his natural self encounters the Holy God, he becomes consciously aware of his sin and his shortcomings. Let me put it in a simple way. In the dark, whatever you wear does not matter. But the more light you shine, then you begin to become aware of the stains and the wrinkles on your clothes. Because the room is dim, nobody sees the wrinkles. Nobody sees the stain. But the moment we shed more light on it, now you can see it. You come into shame. You come into self-doubt, condemnation of yourself, fear in that place of what people would say about you and all of that. And so that's what happens there. When man in his natural self comes in contact with the glory, the power and the presence of this Holy God, he becomes acutely aware of his shortcomings, his failures, his frailties, his mortality, and his sinfulness. And so the Bible tells us that they hid themselves. And in verse 9, and the Lord God called on to Adam and said unto him, where are you? And then he said, and he said, I heard thy voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. I heard your voice. I saw that I was naked. The Bible says that man sinned and fell short of the glory of God. The glory of God departed from him. And so the Bible tells us that man sinned and fell short of the glory of God. The glory of God became naked and he says, I hid myself. And then God asked him, who told you you are naked? Have you eaten of the tree that I asked? In essence, because you have flaunted my rules, now you're thinking in a certain way that you ought not to be thinking. In essence, please listen very carefully to me. The issue, the biggest issue with Adam here was what he thought of himself. He thought of himself that he was naked. He thought of himself that he was ashamed, fearful to approach God. And that's what happens with sin consciousness. Please note that I'm not saying sin. I'm saying sin consciousness because Jesus dealt with sin on the cross. What is left to be dealt with in the life of a believer really and truly is sin consciousness. Okay. And so what happens with sin consciousness is that you feel ashamed to approach God. You feel guilty. You are afraid. You're condemned by your own actions. And then there's a lot of self doubt. And you feel like, well, can I approach God this way? God hates sin and things like that and all the rest. And yes, God hates sin, but God does not hate you. And this is what you should realize that the devil will use sin consciousness to put a wedge between you and God. I always say to people that when you miss it, don't run from God, run to God. He's the only one that can help you. In fact, if you read the story of the prodigal son, the prodigal son had to leave where he was. In essence, yes, there's the love and the mercy of God, the overwhelming reckless love and mercy of God. But we have to come back home. All right. The father has his arms wide open, ready to receive you, but you have to come back home to receive and take advantage of the mercy. Observe that the father didn't leave town and go looking for the prodigal son. No, he waited and then the prodigal son, he waited and then the prodigal son, he waited and then the prodigal son, he waited and then the embrace of his father. And so sin consciousness would destroy the confidence we have in our relationship and our pursuit of God. In fact, let me show you a scripture that speaks to this very clearly in first John chapter three, first John chapter three, sin consciousness, and we have to deal with it. First John, the third chapter. If you look at verse 20, he says something powerful. He says, let me read from verse 19. Hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him. Then he says in verse 20, for if our heart condemns us, that means your heart can condemn you. If our heart condemns us, God is greater than your heart, which means what is the testimony of God, even when your heart condemns you. All right. It is God is greater than our heart and know it all things. Then he says in verse 21, beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God. So, when your heart What do you lose? Your confidence. Your confidence towards God. You're not able to pray the way you should pray anymore. And so he tells you, if your heart condemns you, you lose your confidence. But if your heart condemns you, God is greater than your heart. I always give the example of Peter, about how that Peter had said, listen, I would never betray you. I would never deny you. Jesus said, before the cock crows tries, before the cock crows tries, you deny me. Or before the cock crows, you deny me tries. You know, there are different schools of thoughts around that. But the point is that you deny me, whether tries and all the rest. And then he says, before the cock crows. So we have an idea about the time. It must have been early in the morning. The dusk, the dawning of the day, when the cock was going to crow. And that's when he denied Jesus. But observe that when Jesus came to meet Peter and told him, feed my sheep and gave him that commission again, he came at the same time that cocks crow, which means the very same time where he must have heard the cock crow. And he would have gone into self-condemnation to say, listen, I betrayed Jesus. I denied him like I should never have done. And then the Bible tells us, something very powerful. It's the same time Jesus came back to him. In essence, hear me and hear me well. There is nothing more powerful than sin consciousness to wedge a gap between you and God. Now, what is the provision of scriptures? 1 John chapter 1. If you flip back to chapter 1 in 1 John, the Bible tells us in verse 7. But if you walk in the light as it is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. Or maybe I read from verse 6. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. All right. And then he says in verse 8, if we say that we have no sin, which means when you see that you have erred with God. And this is extremely important. You have to understand the difference between sin consciousness and repentance. When you see that you have erred with the Lord, he says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. So there must be that acknowledgement of wrongdoing. I hear a lot of people teach today and they say things like, oh, there's no need for the acknowledgement of wrongdoing. There's no need for repentance and all of the rest. And that is a very, very dangerous theology to believe. The Bible says that if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But he gives us the provision of scriptures. Verse 9. If we confess our sins, he says he is faithful and just. Not only is he faithful, he is just, which means he becomes unjust if he does not forgive. Our sins. And not only does he forgive our sins, he cleanses us from all unrighteousness. He says, if we if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. I want you to observe that. So there must be that acknowledgement of sin, the acknowledgement of the wrong day. And then look at chapter two, verse one. Remember, the Bible was not written in chapters and verses. My little children, these things write I unto you that you sin not, which means he's not writing. He's giving you the provision to say every time you sin, you can ask for forgiveness. No, he's saying these things will cost you to sin not. Then he says, and if not when, if any man sins, we have an advocate. So sin is an if. All right. So if any man sins, not when any man sins, if any man sins, we have an advocate with the father. So if you err with the Lord, that is not the end. You know, a lot of people begin to pull back from the Lord, pull back from intimacy. They lift their hands in worship and the devil reminds them of something they did wrong and their heart smites them. Hear me and hear me well. If your heart condemns you, God is greater than your heart. And so what should you do? You return back to the Lord. Take advantage of the provision of Jesus on the cross. Father, in the name of Jesus, I come to you acknowledging my faults and my errors. Lord, I repent of this and I receive of you today grace never to walk in this. You repent of it and you never. Let the devil torment you in your mind about that error. Now, the devil will try his best. But every time you cast down the imaginations and you tell yourself Romans eight verse one, there is therefore now no condemnation against me. Glory to God. I hope this has blessed you. Make sure you share this with somebody as short as these teachings are. They are powerful enough to revolutionize your life. 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