Sin damages the relational walk with God for believers without severing salvation; New Testament epistles urge repentance precisely because ongoing sin harms fellowship.

Mike avoids the phrase 'separated from God' because of its connotations with loss of salvation. Instead he affirms that sin causes relational damage to the believer's walk with God — this is experientially real and theologically consistent with passages like Revelation 3 where Jesus calls the Laodicean church to repent and 'buy from me gold refined in fire.' The remedy is repentance, not a new conversion. Salvation is not lost but intimacy is impaired.