If you do much cooking, you know that some recipes call for egg yolks or egg whites, which means you have to be able to separate the yellow yolk from the gooey white of the egg–no easy task. Cooks say cold eggs are best for separating because when they are cold, the yolks and egg whites hold their shape better and separate more easily.

     While some things can be separated and are still usable, other things are not meant to be separated.  You don’t want  the rubber plies in your car or truck tires to separate as you are traveling down the road, you don’t want the front wheel of your bicycle to separate from the bike frame while you are riding down a hill, you don’t want the outboard motor to separate from your boat while you are traveling across the lake, and you don’t want to be separated from your friends and loved ones.  Some things are meant to stay together.  For example, God intends for a husband and wife to stay together, as indicated all the way back in  Genesis 2:24 where God said: “For this cause (marriage) a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.”  The word “cleave” refers to “cement” (like Super Glue) indicating the couple is to remain together permanently. Jesus, in quoting this passage (Mt. 19:5),  goes on to add, “What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” (v. 6). 

     There are some things, however,  from which we are to separate ourselves. Paul, in writing to the Corinthian church, gives this exhortation: “Do not be bound together with unbelievers…come out from their midst and be separate...and do not touch what is unclean” (II Cor. 6:14-17).  Personal separation involves not being unequally yoked (v. 14), not loving the world system or the things in the world (I Jn. 2:15-17), and not having fellowship with sinning brethren (I Cor. 5:11). It also involves a moment by moment separating ourselves from the urges of our old sinful, Adamic nature (Eph. 4:22-24) and walking in our newness of life (cf Ro. 6:1-14; Gal. 5:16). 

     Did you know there is one thing from which you can never be separated? It’s God’s love for you!  If you know Jesus as your personal Savior you can rest assured with complete confidence that whatever happens to you, whatever happens in the world around you and no matter where you may go, you cannot be separated from the love of God.  In his letter to the believers in Rome, Paul wrote: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution or famine (orPandemic), or nakedness, or peril, or sword…For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ro. 8:35-39). 

     We are living in a crazy time with confusion, corruption and chaos everywhere and on every level.  We are witnessing a period in history similar to that which Isaiah witnessed as he spoke to Israel: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and clever in their own sight!…Who justify the wicked for a bribe, and take away the rights of the ones who are in the right!” (Isa. 5:20-23).  The good news is–none of this can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!  Praise God!

     Just as God’s love for His chosen people, Israel, hasn’t changed, neither has His love for you and me waivered, nor will it. God spoke through Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “I have loved you with and everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness” (Jer. 31:3).  In the midst of this world gone crazy, rest daily in His love and the promise: “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to whose who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose…to be conformed to the image of His Son…” (Ro. 8:28,29). And don’t forget, “If God is for us; who is against us?” (v. 31). 

     Forever His and Forever Loved, 

          Pastor Dave