SEPARATED...NO LONGER

When separation occurs under unwelcome, undesired and unwanted circumstances (death, divorce, displacement, disease, etc.), it is often accompanied by deep pain. Death entails unfathomable separation. At death, the spirit is released from the body (James 2:26a). With the death of the body, the deceased person’s living presence is removed from the living, which causes great grief to those directly affected by the separation. Some of us have experienced tragedies in which the death of a person close to us causes us to grieve profoundly. Professional mourners have always existed in the world, but support groups and non-profit organizations for the bereaved have proliferated in the past two decades throughout the United States as a result of people seeking a way to cope with the long-termed pain of separation. Death, the greatest evil known to mankind – second only to sin, causes a permanent rift in relationships, for they are forever transformed. When death takes someone away, you know you are not getting that person back, and that is this very realization that devastates those who mourn the death of a loved one. Although most deaths bring pain in the life of those most concerned, the more tragic and the more unexpected the death, the more severe is the pain of separation. Some of us may have lost recently, or not so recently, someone close to us, whether a spouse, a parent, a child, a family member or a friend. You may be reading this right now while the death of a loved one is imminent. Someone may be contemplating suicide even at this very minute. Know that the best hope can only be found while you are still alive, and physical death (separation of the spirit from the body) does not end it all. In John 11, Jesus’ good friend Lazarus is dead, and both Martha and Mary are apparently deeply affected by the death of their brother. Mary is so inconsolable that Jesus is reportedly moved to the point of tears. This constitutes the only instance in the Bible in which Jesus, the Son of God, cries. Jesus makes an instant promise to Martha, which she interprets as a long-termed one: “Your brother will rise again…I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? …Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” (John 11:23, 25, 26, and 40). Jesus did raise Lazarus from the dead, but Lazarus is still awaiting the final resurrection of the last day just as Martha originally understood it. [Read John 11] The last day is Judgment day, one in which those who believe in Jesus will be raised back to life and spend eternity with God in a new world free from pain and death, while those who did not believe will also be raised back, but they will be experiencing eternal death (eternal separation from God) in “the lake of fire.” However, God does not desire “anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2Peter 3:9). God seeks reconciliation with the crown of His creation – man. Sadly not everyone will be saved, because not everyone will accept God’s reconciliation in God’s own terms. The Bible, the inerrant – error-free – word of God says that “if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” (Romans 10:9, 10) My friend, God wants you to be saved. The real question is: “Do you want to be saved?” You have been separated from God for too long, and God wants you back. You belong to Him. Today, He is calling. This may be the one chance that you’re getting, don’t blow it. Why do you persist in continuing to live so far removed from Him? Are you a sinner? That may sound like a rhetorical question, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23). Well, if you’re a sinner, you need be reconciled with God today. Why must Jesus be the one to bring me back to God? The answer to the above question rests on the basics of the origin of life itself. In the beginning, God said to mankind that “on the day” they ate of the fruit of the “knowledge of good and evil” they will “surely die.” Eve was deceived by Satan, and both Adam and she ate of the fruit that God has forbidden them to eat. Many people upon reading that passage from Genesis 2 can hardly comprehend why Adam and Eve did not drop dead the moment they ate the fruit. Most of us cope with the difficulty of the passage by simply stating that Adam and Eve did die spiritually, which is accurate. But what does that involve? That disobedient act caused a serious breach in God’s relationship to mankind. Eve, in her desire to be wise, ate of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, offered some to Adam, who also ate, the Bible tells us, and, in that manner, they voluntarily removed themselves from the presence of their Creator. Little did they know that their action would cause the entire order of God’s creation to be permanently altered. Through their disregard for God’s word, they ushered death into the world. “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned…” (Romans 5:12) Adam and Eve were separated from God the very moment they ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Their eyes were indeed open, but contrarily to the wisdom the serpent has promised, they were exposed to their nakedness, shame, and fear. God’s presence went from being enjoyable to down right frightening. So they hid and tried vainly to cover themselves. God responded right away by removing them completely from the garden and away from the tree of life. Therefore, God’s presence was no longer within reach, and neither was the tree of life. God did curse both mankind and the rest of creation, but the greatest evil was brought upon humanity through man’s own doing. Because of the great divide that man has created for himself between him and His Creator, he can no longer reach out to God on his own. That is utterly impossible. Only God can bring man back into a relationship with Him, and His plan, even before the foundation of the world, has always been to do this only through His Son Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Prince of Peace. Blaise Pascal, a renowned French philosopher of the seventeenth century, rightly said: “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.” This is one of the best renderings of man’s state that I have yet heard from scholars. Jesus, The Word, puts it better by saying that one must “be born again.” [Read John 3] To be born again means to have one’s spirit being reconnected with God’s Spirit. This is the greatest miracle in the life of a person. It is a supernatural process by which the Holy Spirit gives birth to the spirit of man, and that separation gulf is filled and man’s relationship with God mended. God comes and takes residence in man’s body, and reconciliation is achieved. And it does not matter what has happened in your life prior to that, you’ve got a clean slate to start over with. However, there is one caveat: that can only happen if you proclaim faith in Jesus, the Son of God, for He is the one who bridged that gap by his death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead. By His death, He became the only perfect sacrifice who could take away man’s original offense. God raised Him from the dead because death could not hold the perfect, sinless Son of God, just as the apostle Peter put it for the three thousand people who believed in that message in Jerusalem back on that day of Pentecost right after he and one hundred and nineteen other disciples have been filled with the Holy Spirit themselves, “God raised him [Jesus] from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” (Acts of the Apostles 2:22) We each have that God-shaped vacuum in us that we attempt to fill with everything in creation (drugs, alcohol, eastern religions or meditation, illicit sexual relations with persons of the opposite sex – or the same, internet pornography, the relentless pursuit of wealth, prosperity, and power, etc.), none of which is the proper substitute for the Spirit of God taking residence in us. Having gone back to the basics, is it now clearer why it is no longer a tenable position for you not to put your faith in Jesus Christ, or to keep putting off your commitment to follow Him, or to ignore altogether the call that God has placed on your person? This is just the condensed version of the blessings that God is getting ready to pour out on you and your family, once you put your faith in His Son. If you have suffered the pain of a separation, and you are mad at God, know that He did not cause your pain, but He is well aware of it. He is acquainted with pain. We withdrew from Him even at the onset of our creation, and He separated Himself from His Son, so that He could provide the way back to Him for us. These two actions caused God extreme pain. He can heal your pain. Once you are reunited with your Creator, your life will have purpose and meaning. He will bear your pains. You will find renewed hope and joy unspeakable. Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.