Spiderwebs of False Separation

by Pastor Gina Johnson

I went yesterday to Overland Park to be with the group, AYPN, Activate Your Power Now. They were doing a speaker series, which I am a part of, but this particular time, I wasn't the speaker. I was the emcee. And if you all get a chance, I invite you to go on Facebook, and you just type in Activate Your Power Now. The founders are James and Isabel. And you can see some of the things that were shared that day, because it was Activate Your Power Now: Forgiveness. And there were many great speakers who shared their truths, where they're at in that space and time.

But as I sat there, I recognized that more than I was there to be an emcee and weave things together for people, build up their confidence, speak truth in them before they stepped up onto the platform, I was there also to be a student and to just be present. And maybe I didn't even recognize that while I was still there, because I was trying really hard to make sure I did justice to loving and affirming each person before and after they spoke. But as I was on the drive back here, I remember turning to Roary and saying, “I think I'm going to speak on forgiveness tomorrow. That's what I'm feeling. I'm feeling like I want to speak on forgiveness.”

And it's interesting, because I don't like getting caught up in forgiveness. Because sometimes, as I heard yesterday, when you go into spaces looking to speak on forgiveness, you send people looking for spaces where they may need forgiveness, or they lack forgiveness, or they have to give forgiveness. And the truth of the matter is, we don't need to be caught in that spiral.

But the point is, in the car, I heard Spirit clearly say, “Stop looking, Gina. Your message is already within you.”

So, I scrapped the message I had originally planned, because simply, I'm not the girl that wrote that message. You see, every time you meet me, and every time I meet you, I am a new person, so to read a chapter from her book would be reading someone else's book, and not acknowledging that each day we are new creations in Christ.

Instead, as we talk about forgiveness, I want to talk first about sin. Now, I've said many times, there is difference in how I see sin, and how other people see sin, because people get caught up in sin being about bad actions, moral failures, that doesn't look right, you didn't do that right, that's sin. Places where people look and say, “That's wrong, so that's sin.” Now, many of you all know, we can read in the Bible, sin is missing the mark.

Well, when I look at the root, I think sin is separation. Sin is any time that we allow ourselves to believe that we are separated from God. And not just God that you place in some special place, whether it's somewhere external, somewhere in that lofty place you call heaven, but God that is within you. So if God is within you, just like I said about fear, the minute you give in to sin and separation, you're separating from God which is within you, which actually you can't.

You're really just buying into an illusion that builds a huge chasm between you and God, even though it's not possible. But we'll build it, and our minds are so powerful that we'll stand on the other side, and we'll feel lost, and we'll feel alone, and so maybe we'll cross our arms and sit down and wallow, or maybe we'll get angry, and we'll think to ourselves, “How do I bridge this gap, how do I get back to the other side,” or “Maybe if I turn around and go that way, I'll find something better.” The thing is you can't separate from God.

The twist is that because God lives in you, you cannot separate from yourself, you cannot separate from God, you cannot separate from your divine truth, you cannot separate from the I Am. But I found myself this week in a place of separation, and I do believe that we choose. So I chose to go into that place of separation.

There was an encounter I had early in the week, and it was an encounter that I knew was going to be about a particular subject, and in that encounter it turned out to be about many things that I wasn't expecting until just hours before. Things were said, and old words, and old doubts, old fears came rushing back to me. These are things that I thought I resolved. These are things that I thought I was over. These are things that I thought had no hold on me, because nothing has a hold on me but the love and truth, which is God. Yet I sat there, moments of silence, moments of response, maybe even moments of reaction.

But overall, inside, I was trying really hard to stop the spiral. That spiral that we go into when we start playing the game of separation. That spiral that had me sitting there saying, “Am I too much? Did I miss something? Am I not right for this situation? Am I the person that comes into places and causes division? When people get fear over pot stirrers, is that what I am? Gina, I thought you had forgiven yourself.”

Isn't that interesting? Isn't that interesting that in moments where we thought we put something down, it can just come back to us? And it's like standing in a spider web, but not knowing it. You know, I like when I go out to Mozingo with Rain, and we take walks together. And she's a charge ahead of mommy kind of girl, and that's okay with me, because I told her this last time after she walked through a spider web.

I said, “That's why I like you going in front of me. That privilege is all yours.”

Sometimes there is a web within us, this web of separation that we are still weaving, that we don't realize until we touch a part of it. And then we freak out about touching it. Next thing you know, it's on our face and in our hair. And it's like, “Is there a spider on me? Is there a spider on me?” And you're doing a weird dance.

The thing is, I realized that the sin didn't begin in this encounter. The sin began the moment I started thinking that I was separate from God. The sin began the moment I thought that I was separate from the individuals I was speaking with. The sin began the moment I thought that I was better than them, or they were better than me, or that we had some kind of breakup that we wouldn't be able to reconcile. That we had some kind of difference that in the end it's going to be us versus them, or who's right and who's wrong. The sin begins any time we give birth to those things.

The sin began this morning when I stood in front of my mirror and I looked at myself. And I thought, “Gosh, my armpits look chubby.” Yeah, ladies, you know what I’m talking about. Thank you, ladies. I thought, “I don't want to wear that outfit. I'm not the right body to wear this. I don't think I look that great, you know.” Isn't that funny?

How is that a sin? Because I almost let that thought play in my head longer than it should. I almost let that thought get caught up in some ideal that I am my body.

Now, for the sake of this being my temple, I pride myself on taking care of this vehicle that I have manifested to do this experience in. But overall, the minute I grab on to that, I'm too fat, I'm too skinny, I'm too old, I'm too young, I have this level of education, I don't have this much money. Anytime I grab on to something that tells me anything besides you are a child of God, you are created in the image of God, you are the I Am, you are the all-powerful, you are the almighty. It’s sin.

You know, people have a hard time hearing that they might be God. So fine, if God is the sun, you are the sunbeam, right? So you're the demigods. And that can be shaky inside too, but how many of you have parents that you're very proud to claim. I have no problem saying I am my father's daughter. You know, sometimes I've been little Bruce, but call me Gina. And that's the thing, we all have that ability to recognize if we just allow ourselves, that we are the I Am. When Jesus said, “I am the salt, I am the light,” when Jesus said those things, he was saying them so you could hear them and know that that is who you are.

So, after I had this encounter and I recognized that I was standing in this spider web and it's no one's fault but my own. And I don't mean for the actions. I don't mean that, you know, I looked over all of these things and I'm like, “Yes, you were wrong there. I was wrong here. Oh, I was right there, but I was wrong there.”

No, that's beside the point. It's when you take those things that might have been mistakes in the moment, if that's what you want to call them, wrong turns, wrong words. It's when you take them instead of releasing them and forgiving yourself and you turn them into prisons, you turn them into tethers, you turn them into identities and faces. That's when you get caught up in sin. That's when you start to forget the fullness of who you are.

And Spirit spoke to me again. And what Spirit said to me is, “Keep seeking the fullness of God and you will know the fullness of who you are.” And that's what I said. I will keep seeking the fullest expression of that which is God so I can become—so I can reclaim the fullest expression of that which is me.

Because it's really not about becoming. It's about remembering who we are. So when I need to seek forgiveness, it's because I start to shrink and I start to adjust and I start to worry about being acceptable and pleasing to man. When you focus on being acceptable and pleasing to that which is truth and love, then everything else will fall into place. It's just not your job to spend time in separation and forgetfulness. That's not what we've been called here to do.

And that forgetfulness, the forgetting of who you are, that is sin. Not because God is mad at you. You know, how many times do you see your children, your best friends, your spouses, your loved ones act from a place of insecurity and doubt and fear? You're not mad at them.

But gosh, I have those moments where I'm disappointed because it's like, “I can see who you are, my child. Why can't you see who you are?” You know, how many times does God look upon us, look from within us, and just wonder, “Why are you not seeing your wholeness?” It's not God that wonders. Really, it's me that wonders. It should be us that wonders. Why are we not seeing our wholeness? Why have we given life to something?

And forgiveness, forgiveness isn't what you think either, because we like to think, “Well, you know, I forgave them and it's going to take me a little bit to forget, but I forgave them.” Wow, forgiveness is about being the bigger person?

Not at all. Forgiveness isn't even about saying, “It's okay,” when really it's not okay, you're just going to walk away and stir and stir in your head over all the reasons it's not okay. Forgiveness isn't saying, “Yeah, I'll take care of it. Sorry, sorry I acted that way. I don't mind. I'm willing.” And then every fiber in your being, even though your face may be trying to say one thing, it's not, because our physiology is so telling. We are just there in our web.

Forgiveness is when you give yourself permission to release the pain that you are giving birth to. It's when you release the power that you have decided, “I don't want this power that God has given me freely and fully. So I'm going to go ahead and give that away.”

Forgiveness is when you release that guilt of recognizing who you are in God. It's when you stop letting others define for you what God already shows you each and every day through the beingness of who you are. When you stop feeding separation in your mind, you will be exercising forgiveness more and more.

The other week I was talking to my friend Virginia. We had had false distance in our beautiful friendship because of some things that were weighing on my mind and I was giving them life. And my Virginia, talking about my friend Virginia, guys, she's a little stubborn. So I had to drag her away so I could tell her how much I love her.

But as I was leaning on her, like I always do, I was telling her about some challenges I was experiencing. And a verse that popped in my mind was, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” And it's funny because I thought, “Oh, Jesus was on the cross in the middle of it.”

He didn't say, “Hey Father, when they apologize, I'm going to forgive them because they know not what they do.” He didn't say, “You know, when they finally understand what's really going on here, I'm going to forgive them for they know not what they do. When they catch up to me in my supreme beingness, I'm going to forgive them.”

In the middle of misunderstanding, in the middle of false separation, in the middle of confusion, he said, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Because forgiveness isn't about who's right or wrong. It's about being free to be the fullness of who you are. It's about recognizing if you really are moving from love and from truth, from grace, that you won't ever need to seek forgiveness because there's no separation in love. There's no separation in the truth. There's no separation in grace.

I read a story of two hikers. One was very sure-footed and one was rather anxious. And they reached the cliff's edge and the anxious one was stumbling and he grabbed the other and they nearly both got pulled down. But after catching their breath, the anxious one said, “Why did you steady yourself and grab me back?” And the other one said, “Because as I watched your panic, I saw your worth.”

Sometimes we do things maybe not from a place of panic. Maybe it's from a place of misunderstanding. But I always tell you guys, right, you're always doing the best you can with what you have with where you're at. So, what might look like my best to me might not look like my best to you and vice versa.

In that moment, as the anxious one was shaking, he's like, “What do I do here? I'm going to reach and do anything.” The other one was like, “Whoa, steady. You're worth more than this panic. You're worth more than whatever story you're spinning in your head. You're worth more than whatever illusion you're going to put on today. You're not going to take me down with you. I'm going to remind you who you are. We're going to stay right here because there's nowhere else we need to be.” And that's forgiveness.

It's not in the middle of my mistakes, your mistakes, you were right. I was wrong. I was wrong. You were right. Let's go around and round about it for several hours in our head at night before we go to sleep. When we wake up in the morning on the car rides, let's stir it and stir it and stir it.

No. Forgiveness is when you see those fears, when you feel that panic, where you recognize maybe where you were wrong or maybe where someone else was right. And you say, “I'm the one that needs grace here. They're the one that needs grace here. We both are growing. We both are learning. We both are still navigating here.” It’s a waste of my time trying to decide who's better, who's worse, who's ahead, who's not. When I talk about awareness, I'm always talking about like higher levels of awareness and higher levels of consciousness. But, you know, I'm going to do away with the levels thing, because truly we're all right here.

And if we get really top shelf, you know, that cereal box level, we're all right here. We are all Gina here. And it goes on because we all are one. But since we can't see it that way, we'll back up a little bit and say, “We're all right here.” Can we see each other right here? Can we recognize that I may appear in some days like, “Wow, our pastor, what a great level of awareness. She must be doing her Bible study.” And other days may be like, “Wow, our pastor. Yeah, we got to work on her just a little.” Can we see both sides of that and recognize that it's not even about who's further along?

It's about recognizing where you are and recognizing that there's still so much more to be remembered. There's so much more to be reclaimed. You don't have to go out and find something. You don't have to go and seek something out there. It's all inside you. There's nothing to be forgiven for when you truly step into the fullness of who you are and look at everyone else out there with the same eyes. It's seeing yourself that way. It's seeing them that way.

I want to talk about something that's challenging, I believe, without a doubt. And if I impose this on you, I hate when that's done to me. So, I do apologize. It's challenging when people leave the church. And we can look around this sanctuary on a Sunday morning and I know, don't worry, I know it was getting empty before I got here, but I know that since I've been here, we've had two waves where lots of people have chosen to leave the church.

And lots feels like lots, especially when you're in a smaller congregation. You know, if we were a congregation of 500, you know, you wouldn't even feel it the same at times. But it's not about who left and why they left and what they took with them, whether it was their gifts, their presence, their money, whatever it was.

I say that boldly because whenever I hear people talking about people who left, I hear the phrase, “They were great givers.” Gross. But the point is when people leave a community, it's not always because they found peace. It's not always because they were asked to leave. Sometimes it's just because they didn't feel seen. Sometimes it's because they didn't allow themselves to feel seen. Sometimes it's because none of us opened our eyes big enough to see them to try to make a difference.

I can take ownership of all of those things and times where I've left situations. I've left situations at times because like, “You know what? Nobody here sees me. Nobody gets me. I don't want to fight this uphill battle. I'm out.” Or I could say, “You know, they are trying and they're trying, but I'm not going to get to be the fullest version of me in this place. So I need to get out of here.”

I always thought if a ship was sinking, that's the best time for us all to band together and save the ship. So maybe when people left, they didn't know how to name it. Maybe they didn't feel safe and seen here. Maybe they were reacting to fear or discomfort.

Maybe they were starting to experience a growth and a stretch they weren't ready for. But for those of us who are here, for those of us who love those individuals, for those of you who have served beside them, who remember the good, which is who they are, it can feel like abandonment. It can feel like you've lost a friend. It can feel like your family is crumbling. It can feel like they left and they made it personal. And guess what happens in that moment? Spider web time.

That's when sin is just ready. Sin is poised and ready. Because in that moment, you can start to ask yourself those questions. Did I reach out enough? Did I try hard enough? Did our pastor apologize as many times? Did anyone else call or send cards? And we can play that game. But if we really stop, we'll let go of those words like, I must have failed. I must not have done enough. This is my fault they're gone. You know what? Maybe, maybe some of the times it is such and such's fault that so and so is gone. But that's only because someone is still holding that fault.

The truth of the matter is, if I turned in a resignation tomorrow, not a single one of you better feel at fault, because that would be my choice. And no, I'm not turning in a resignation tomorrow. But that's just to say, you can't blame yourselves.

Have you ever lost a really good minister in your life? Have you ever seen a really good minister leave a church? Have you ever seen a really good congregation member leave a church? Someone that you just loved and you just can't understand why they're not there anymore? We all have. If we haven't seen it, we've heard of it.

But here is the grace, okay? Forgiveness says they didn't know what they were doing. I didn't really know what I was doing. And even if they did or I did, obviously we both didn't know enough to stop the sin. We both didn't know enough to rid the chasm, to break the illusion, to stop in our tracks and say, “I don't have to carry this. This is not real.”

And as people come and go in our lives, whether it's in a church, whether it's in a school, whether it's in a friend group, whether it's in a relationship, whatever it is, you have to say, “I don't have to carry the weight of their discomfort.” Because if you don't, you will be spinning that web, that web of sin. You may sit there and point at yourself and say, “What could I have done different?” Well, sure, entertain it for a moment, then put it down. Because if you carry it and you label yourself at fault, then you're standing in a false illusion.

You are responsible for you. You are responsible for the fullness of you and the fullness of you owes it to yourself, because you are created in the image of the I Am, you are the I Am. So, if you would give God all your love, all your devotion, all your very being to show up as your highest self, give it to yourselves, too.

And when I say give it to yourself, remember the top shelf message? You are all me. I am all you. So the moment I can forgive myself for every place that I missed the mark, for every place where I couldn't get the words back in my mouth that already came out, for every place where I recognized and I grew and I learned and somehow two years, three years, 10 years later, I started calling myself names again.

Put it down. Leaving isn't always wrong. Sometimes it's time to leave. I'm a big Esther fan, Esther from the Bible. And man, my power phrase is “for such a time as this.” It's when leaving takes place without love that it creates separation.

And when you see leaving taking place without love, you can only do so much. But the thing you can do is make sure that within yourself, you are not leaving. Don't leave yourself.

Don't leave God. Don't form that gap. And if you're doing that at your highest self, then maybe, just maybe the other person won't leave.

But if they do, as my friend James told me this morning, dust your hands off. And some of you are like, “Gosh, that's harsh. Did you just dust your hands of it?” No, I dust my hands of the guilt. I dust my hands of the pain. I dust my hands of that part that's going to then shrink me down and tell me that I'm not a good minister, that I don't belong here, that you all will be better off without me.

In Romans 8, it says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.”

So, if we are set free through Christ Jesus, if we are set free from sin, the illusion of separation, and from death, why are we still condemning ourselves? Why are we still condemning each other? As I grow more in myself, I am very honest with people, and they don't like when I say this, but yes, I judge. I make judgments all the time. It just depends on how you're framing the word.

But I judge for protection. I judge out of curiosity. I judge to learn, but I don't believe in condemning.

Stop giving the microphone to doubt. Stop giving the bullhorn to fear. Allow yourself to be free and recognize all of that that you are. As I said, I'm going to keep seeking to know the fullest expression of God so I will know the fullest expression of me, and in that, I will know the fullest expression of you all.

Two Junes ago, I preached a sermon on love God and love your neighbor, and I always say you cannot love God without loving your neighbor. So, the minute you're choosing one over the other, just throw them both away.

But guess what? You cannot love God without loving you, and you cannot love you without loving God. It's another trinity. It's God, it's you and your neighbor.

So I'm going to invite you to do an exercise as we come into this close. I would invite you to close your eyes, and I would invite you to go within, and for just a moment, just in this space for this moment, I want you to picture a moment when someone's words or someone's actions, maybe they were even your own, but when someone's words or someone's actions made you question your own worth. For just a brief moment, hold that space where you felt attacked, where you felt invisible, where someone left and it had you confused and wounded.

Now if you have that moment, I want you to speak into it, and whether you're speaking to yourself or you're speaking to that someone, or whether you're speaking for someone else in this space, “I forgive them for not seeing. I forgive myself for forgetting, and I remember who I am.”

Make sure as you come back and you open your eyes that you release that moment, because it's gone.

I remember a children's moment one time. I don't know if I was at like a summer camp or something. I wasn't a child, but I was in the audience, and someone took an index card, and they said, “This is sin. Can everyone see this?” And they were waving it around, and then they picked up a Bible, and they said, “This represents God, because it's God's word,” and they put the index card in there. They said, “Can anyone see it?” Of course, there's no, no. And the speaker said, “Well, that's how God is when it comes to your sin.”

We can take it a step further. It's not that God doesn't see your sin because you're hidden in his word. It's not because God doesn't see your sin, because you've done something righteous and great to absolve it. God doesn't see your sin, because there's no separation between you and God, so why do we have these moments of sin, of separation? To teach ourselves, to teach us how to love, to teach us how to see ourselves and see each other, to teach us how to listen, to give us opportunities to grow into the fullness of who we are.

And why did this all get created? Now, that one, I don't get paid enough to determine right now, but I'll tell you, I’m not here to tell you how it is. I don't want to call you out. I want to call you home. Remember our 2025 theme of welcome home? I want to call you home, home to yourselves, to your true selves, to my true self, home to the truth that is inside of you.

I want to forgive like Jesus, in the middle of the misunderstanding, in the middle of the accusations, in the middle of the spit and the mocking, and sometimes guess what? It's only me doing it to myself. It's only me mocking and spitting on myself, and even in that moment, that moment more than any other, I want to forgive like Jesus. Father, forgive me, because I forget what I do.

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Let's pray. Our most gracious and loving God, thank you. Thank you for all that you are, which we can't even explain in words. Thank you for all that we are. Thank you for the I Am that is you, that is me, that is us.

And Father, we trust that your word never comes back void, so those with the ears to hear, may we receive, and may seeds be planted, and if we do not see the harvest in this moment, we trust that it's on its way. Thank you. We trust you.

We love you. In Jesus' name, amen.