There’s a cool passage in Ephesians 2. It talks about walls. Verse 14 says:

“For He is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility.”

Before Christ, there were alot of walls. Some of them were physical and some were figurative. The physical walls were things like the wall that kept Gentiles from going deeper into the temple. The temple in Jerusalem was set up with barriers, preventing everyone but a select group of people from going further inside. Those barriers furthered the figurative barrier between Jews and Gentiles, creating the mindset that one group was closer, or more preferred, than the other.

But God isn’t a wall-builder; He’s a wall-breaker. That’s what Christ did. In one word, Christ provided access. That’s what verse 18 tells us:

“For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.”

Access.

And not just partial access, but access without restriction. Both groups. Anyone, through the Holy Spirit and the cross of Christ, has unhindered access to God. If feels like that should be a bigger word to me than it is.

But I have the question: If I have that kind of access, then why does my relationship with God still feel hindered? And the answer comes back: God doesn’t build walls. He tears them down. That’s what Christ did – He tore down the walls separating people from each other and those separating people from God.

That means any walls in my relationship with God aren’t put there by Him; they’re put there by me.

Walls built on things like shame, guilt, insecurity, prayerlessness – these are all walls I build up. God doesn’t. He granted access. And maybe, because God is the ultimate wall-tearer-downer, the walls I build aren’t really there either.

See, my response to those walls is to try and scale them. To try and get over them by my effort and my holiness. But God has already torn them down. There is complete access. And my efforts to scale them really result in even bigger walls.

There is much freedom in knowing that God provides access… if I’m willing to take advantage of it. If I’m willing to stop building walls in relationships. If I’m willing to stop trying to scale those walls and instead, to walk through them by faith.