Day 3874 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

2 Corinthians 6:17 NIV

Separate

To set or keep apart: disconnect, sever. To make a distinction between: discriminate, distinguish, sort. To disperse in space or time: scatter. To sever conjugal ties with: divorce. To sever contractual relations with: discharge. To block off: segregate. To isolate from a mixture: extract. To become isolated from a mixture: extracted. To divide into constituent parts. To dislocate. To become divided or detached. To sever an association: withdraw. To cease to live together. To go in different directions. To be set or kept apart: detached, solitary, secluded, not shared with another, estranged from a body, existing by itself: autonomous, dissimilar in nature or identity.

And then there’s this, and it is what is determined to be the archaic definition: To set aside for a special purpose: choose, dedicate.

Chosen.

Dedicated.

Sat aside for a special purpose.

For we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a people meant to embody what ought to be a holy nation who live as if we are indeed God’s special possession that are only here where we are so that we might do as He created us to do and that is to declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into His wonderful light. A light that cannot help but change everything anywhere it shines.

Why?

Because it separates. It illuminates. It discriminates between that which is good and the more that is not. It defines the line between death and life and asks us all to see for ourselves that we’ve lived on the dying side of it. It opens our eyes to see so many things that should not be in both the lives we live and the world in which we’ve lived them in step. It calls us to heed the yearning of our soul as opposed to the deceptions of our heart. And yes, that does mean that it asks, that He asks that we do indeed come apart from whatever and wherever we’ve sought to be a part.

God’s light, the light that is radiant from God’s very presence calls into our existence with the persistent purpose of forming that space between that of which we’ve been a part into what’s then a life from the same lived apart.

And yeah, it’s gonna hurt. It’s going to be hard. It will mean both hatred and thus heartache. It will mostly like mean heartbreak if not the very breaking of these bodies that we’ve tried so hard to build in both communion with and in consideration of all that is in this world and thus within those eyes and minds and lives of they who will sadly live still as if here they belong. And our becoming so divorced from what is a society to whom we’ve pledged ourselves in unholy union will determine that we will likely feel lonely and alone.

But we are not.

We never have been. In fact, what’s ironic is that the more of those who are worldly with whom we’ve associated, with whom we’ve been surrounded, the more of this world’s “normal” that we’ve known and in turn who’ve then known us means only we’ve already been the loneliest we’ll ever be. For what is there that isn’t lonely about living a life as what is but one ship cast into a sea in which every other ship lives as if there is no other?

Or even sails into these jails of hatred and hostility that leaves so many thinking themselves those famed destroyers of wartime lore sent to search for those who don’t look right, sound right, live right so as to destroy the same?

Indeed, our having each lived as if to be loved by the world that all but hates everything has caused us to chase after what is a world going under. It’s instilled inside of us this continuous lust for what is not life, what is not love, what is not helpful or hopeful or even happy anymore. Friends, is it not increasingly easy to see all the suffering and strife in this life in this land? Can we not notice the many immoral normalities that have overcome our communities?

Do we not hear the things that people are saying to one another, saying of one another? Can we not almost taste the hate as soon as we kiss the morning with eyes afraid to open just knowing we’re bound to see another scene of something we shouldn’t?

Do we not realize the wasted lives being left behind as people live for what are idols of everything from famous peoples to little statues of likely even the same?

Don’t we understand that so long as we agree to live but only vicariously through what is not itself alive that nor then can we be?

And make no mistake, while this world we’re in does a pretty good job of making itself seem alive what with the sound of violence and vitriol, the truth is that what we’re both witnessing and thus walking through, wading through is but the writhing body of what was once a living creation that’s down to its very last gasp of and for anything from glory to greed.

Yes, we are now walking through the death rattle of a million peoples all enjoying their uniquely chosen delusions, distractions, destructions. What then doesn’t make any sense is again what I asked yesterday. And that is what are we waiting for? What do we honestly still assume we’ll see or hope to find? What is there to find or see, to feel or be in what is a place that’s become so cold that to go outside is to risk your life?

Even in summertime?

You see my friends, the solemn truth truly is that what’s been done to this world has in turn come to define that which is this world. And combing through history what you’ll find is a massively unequal blending of war and peace. Indeed, this world has known so many wars, so many fights, innumerable arguments. And it’s because of that that our affinity for such has grown to this point in which we now make sport of it. We almost seek to thrive upon disagreement and dispute.

And while that could be and mostly likely is for what are an equally innumerable number of reasons, they all boil down to the same:

Our adversary prowls this place seeking whomever he might devour through what is his endless working to steal and kill and destroy.

And please take a moment to both look around and consider within and tell me what you see/feel that is in any way still a sign of life?

Or is not the vast majority of what we daily both see and feel but a sigh of life?

Oh that life were better in a world the same! But alas, war is normal and we so love to fight. But friends, what’s the use in a fight that’s fought to stay where the fighting never ends? What’s the hope in holding out hope to find hope in a place against the idea? What good can possibly come from a world chasing so vastly fast after all that’s only fat and flat? Yes, what can we ever believe we’ll be in what is a place that wants so clearly to never be anything more than just this that already is?

Friends, such is why He asks us here to come out from the fallout and embrace the separation. To enjoy the seclusion. To reach finally the decision to distance ourselves from those driving themselves so far away from God that they now delight in killing those who merely speak of His presence. Yes, this world hates the idea of God being there, mostly because of His thus clearly defined divine authority effortlessly overthrowing our longstanding assumptions of our own.

What then is there to stay for?

What are we to hope to find, to see, to even be when this world remains what we look to and strive to live like? What can we be if all we see is but a way of life that keeps us up at night fighting through such questions as why it has to be this way and why we ourselves have gone the same?

Indeed, still I sometimes lose sleep as I instead lie awake retracing the steps I’ve taken to choices I’ve chosen that seem now so clearly so foolish, just trying to find some reason why I didn’t know then what I wish it didn’t leave me feeling now. For let’s not split hairs here, regret is a most miserable of mistress. And yet we all but daily seek out the very same meetings and marriages as those we see being entered into by those around us.

All because we still seem to so sadly assume that this world’s on to something that we may well enjoy too.

But what?

For this world is high on hatred, drunk on debauchery, wasted on want and wanting oddly enough to stay the same. It’s clear that the vast majority like it this way. People all around are literally taking to the streets and setting things on fire in what’s then so clearly an effort to continue to the overall collapse of everything that could have been.

Just the other day I saw a clip of a very prominent political figure talking about how certain people of “a certain persuasion, a certain religion, a certain point of view, a certain ideology” are “just doing such damage to what we should be aiming for.”

What are we aiming for? And considering then our world’s overwhelming hatred of change and thus improvement, what can then ever be different in what we’re aiming for and what we’re clearly aiming toward? For this world will continue on the way it has so clearly chosen because it loathes correction. People hate change and will utterly reject it no matter how bad things may get.

Indeed, I believe that there are those in this place that would rather lose their lives than get up off their beds and do something better that could save them instead.

We see this playing out every single day as, again, people are to the point of simply killing those who even dare to speak about the necessity of effort and purpose and combining the both into the building of something beautiful. Yes, this world hates beauty, and well, we shouldn’t be too surprised seeing as lust is what encompasses the highest amount of internet traffic.

Do we not see that this world is inherently errant? Don’t we realize that we’re watching a people unravel as they scrape the deepest depths of their deceptive hearts? Can’t we hear the hate, feel the torment, understand the reason?

!!!THIS WORLD HATES GOD!!!

Why then are we trying so hard to stay, to fit, to feel as if we belong or might again feel at home? Friends, our houses are on fire and everything we’ve filled them with is nothing but wood and gasoline! What good is ever going to come from that?

No, it is indeed now well past the time to come out from both where and thus what we’ve been and to be then only separate and so set upon it that we delight to forever grow further. Separate. Set apart. Different in nature. Different in direction. Different in devotion. Divided from the distractions and detractions of a world so clearly losing traction that all most are doing is just finger pointing still trying to blame anyone and everyone else for why it’s come so wonderfully apart.

Yes, apart. It is time for us to come apart from whatever we may have here been a part of or had a part in. Look, we screwed up. As one of my favorite song lyrics ever put it “Jesus came to save the world. Then He let us give it a whirl and we messed it up.”

We messed it up. We missed it by a mile. We fell so short of the glory of God that most here seek still only the glory of man. Yes, we’ve indeed so sadly come to see ourselves as being so wise that we can’t see that we’ve been the very fools who’ve indeed “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.”

We missed it. We lost the plot. We lost ourselves and that’s the point. It’s that we’ve gotten so twisted around within this world that is still falling down that we’ve all but become torn apart from both God and thus His always better plans for us. For again, we were created to be a chosen nation, a royal priesthood who exist to proclaim the goodness of God amongst the wickedness of man.

And make no mistake, man is giving us all the opportunity we could ever possibly need to testify to God’s goodness and seek then His glory.

So why then aren’t we?

Why then are we instead still so worldly? Why are we still in fact so very worried about everything from whatever everyone is doing to what the same may be thinking about us and what we do? Do we not yet realize that 99.9% of this world has no idea that we’re alive? Think about it! We pass by hundreds if not thousands of people every single day and not one of them knows our name nor will remember that they passed us by the time the pass out at night.

We are already strangers in what is an increasingly strange land!

What do we have to lose by leaving it all behind?

Friends, I firmly understand the oddity in His asking us to all but walk away from what’s basically all we’ve pretty much been living for, leaning on, learning to love and likely succeeding. It’s weird. It’s hard. It is in every way so unnatural that it feels almost inhuman to even consider. After all, who jumps out of a seemingly perfectly good airplane? Who leaves behind what’s basically a fairly well-built house? Who walks away from what is a world filled with so much that so many so love?

All to wander the desert places and to there be hated because of the difference in both direction and thus devotion?

This world cannot understand such oddities as those we are called to be. And yes, that which this world cannot understand will become the very same as they who they will not tolerate.

When we die we get to go home.

So what’s the big deal?

Friends, my point is that those who are living as if they’re already home want us to live as if we feel the same so that none of us risk having to see that home isn’t supposed to be something so filled with so much violence and division that it’s almost an act of war just because you buy a different brand of cereal. Granted, we’re not technically there yet, but there was that whole kerfuffle a while back over beer companies and wicked advertising.

You get what I’m saying.

Because it’s easy to see it. This world is no longer much of anything that much of anyone should be so insistent upon forming the content of their perfect. Rather this place is coming apart in new ways almost every second of every way. What then are we holding onto? Or rather, what’s here that’s holding onto us? What chains bear we that we can’t seem to seem to see the necessity of leaving it all behind and walking away with such a smile on our face that people would have every right to imagine we’ve simply gone insane?

My friends, we can see what this world thinks is normal, acceptable, expected even.

I think their thinking us insane is pretty much exactly the outcome we should be all but desperate to find!

Why?

Because we never needed this world to accept us. We never needed people to like us. Never needed anybody to even understand us. All because we can know that Jesus died because He does. He accepts us. He likes us. He loves us! And while He understands that who we’ve been is what caused His death, and sees still so many living the same way as if He didn’t, He also understands the reason He did it.

And that was to make us separate. To set us apart. To make a discrimination from those who are still facing forever’s incrimination and those fewer who’ve been delivered from that never-ending disaster.

And indeed, such is what this world seems to anymore be. It’s a never-ending disaster down here. And so again I ask: What do we have to lose if we really do as He’s asked us to and simply walk away from it all?

Yeah, that quite clearly means we’ll lose the world and all we’ve either held or sought to have within it. But friends, as we can see what the world is clearly becoming, why would we want to keep it? What can it offer us? What can this world do for us? What will it profit us if we keep hold of the horror this world’s become and never then have hands free to finally reach for He who both holds the world and has every plan to destroy it again?

Let it go! Leave it behind! Set your heart to just walk away. Why? Because there is no more life here. Rather all life here has either already ended or is well on the way to do the same. We are running out of time in this place, and yet we’re running out of reasons to be like this place even faster.

So yes, let us come out of her and be separate. Let us be different. Let us learn to distinguish that which is good from all that simply isn’t and follow that with throwing out of our lives and our concerns anything that doesn’t help us better aim at both what and where our home really is.

Because this ain’t it.

No, this is obviously just the storm before the calm.

And if that isn’t obvious yet, well then I beg you to start asking God to open your eyes because it honestly couldn’t be any clearer that this place is most definitely already in the handcart and well on the way to where the same is said to be going!

And picking up speed.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold