Be Separate

"Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you." (2 Corinthians 6:17)
We're surrounded by a world which is ruled for the most part by Satan. How can we avoid getting caught up in it? How can we stand apart?

You'll find the answer in John 17:17. There Jesus was speaking to the Father about all those who would believe on Him. "Sanctify them through thy truth," He said. "Thy word is truth." Sanctify means "to separate unto." So Jesus was saying, "Separate them by the Word." The Word separates!

Standing Apart from Everyone Else

Wendy Blight

"You are to be holy to me because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own." Leviticus 20:26 (NIV 1984)

Our daughter got the call ... the invitation she had been waiting for. It was the party everyone wanted to go to and she'd been invited!

She was so excited. However, one step remained: securing her parents' permission. She knew it would be difficult. But she was sure once she explained the significance of the invitation, we would say "yes."

We did not.

"Everyone else is going. I will be the only one not there. It's not fair!" To which, we firmly replied, "We are not like everyone else. There will be no parental supervision. You absolutely may not go."

This happened often throughout our daughter's middle and high school years. And because she could not always do what everyone else did, she often felt left out.

As her parents, we were establishing boundaries and limits. Our actions, though hard at times, taught her a powerful biblical truth: Because we don't belong to everyone else, we don't live like everyone else.