"Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."
- 2 Corinthians 6:17, 18
This is not a popular message, but it is a most profitable message; one that if we really pay close attention it will do more for us spiritually than we could ever hope to achieve on our own. If you go all the way back to the book of Genesis, the first thing God did after he spoke and said: "let there be light!" was he divided the light from the darkness. That may seem very elementary to some, but it is a most profound truth. Everything that God does always begins with separation.
Separation is the very cornerstone of our salvation. As we learn to build upon a life of separation we will come to experience more and more of what it is to be saved. Just as God separated the light from the darkness, he separated us from a life that was bound in darkness. Peter said he "called us out of darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Pet. 2:9). That separation was to bring us out of a life bound by the restrains and misery of earthly frailty. We were like a turbulent sea. We knew nothing about a life of peace and rest. We were conflicted, tormented, and miserably destitute. Paul even said we had: "...all gone out of the way, and together had become unprofitable..." (Rom. 3:12). The very fact that we were all unprofitable means that we had no way of succeeding in life, at least any kind of life that could please God.
Thank God he didn't leave us that way! He made a way for us to be set free. But now here's the truth of it. The act of separation was not a "once and for all" work. We have to realize that our Christian life is in a constant state of transition where we need to live a separated life. There are decisions we make every day that determine what kind of stance we are going to take. Are we going to be affected by things that are worldly or are we going to be affected by things that are godly? The very choices we make divides or unites us to what marks us as being God's sons and daughters.
Separation is all part of making necessary adjustments. It is like driving your car. You have to constantly adjust your position on the road by slightly turning the wheel back and forth. If you didn't make those minor adjustments you would end up running off the road. The same thing is true spiritually. We have to make minor repairs to the way we think, to the way we talk, and the way we live. Otherwise, we could make shipwreck of our faith.
The Christian life is all about making these adjustments and repairs. Listen, none of us are born into the kingdom automatically having our act together! It takes our willingness and yieldedness to change, to adapt, and to learn how to pull away from things that are unprofitable so that can please God in everything we do.
It is so important to understand that God only works in an atmosphere of righteousness. He cannot and he will not work where unrighteousness is tolerated. Because we live in an unrighteous world we have to maintain a life of separation so that we aren't drawn into things that are unacceptable. This is why the Bible clearly teaches us to come out from among them and be ye separate. A life of separation does not imply we are to segregate ourselves from the world. That would go completely against the teaching of Christ. He told us to, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel!" (Mark 16:15). But we have to understand that our contact with the world is not so that we might be influence by their lifestyle and end up lowering our standards, blending into a life of compromise, but rather to be a light to those who stand in darkness! Our separation must keep up apart from the world for the sole purpose of being an instrument that carries the weight of a life holy and devoted to Christ. We will never be as fruitful as we need to be if we fail to live a separated life. And it is a certainty that we will never be the salt of the earth or the light to the world if we do not make this a necessary priority!
