My perfect example in separation is Jesus Christ, who said, “For their sakes I sanctify [separate] Myself” (John 17:19). He separated Himself from His environment in order that He might enter this world and win back to His Father the people who had been separated from Him because of sin.
The separation of Jesus was voluntary: “I sanctify Myself.” The only compulsion that drove Him was that of love. He did not come as a commercializer to do it for profit, except our profit. He became separate in a free response to His Father’s will, seeking only to behave and act within the limits and guidelines of that will. Of course, in doing His Father’s will He was “separated from sinners” (Hebrews 7:26), that is, separated from their plans, purposes, and acts. But He was not separated from the society of sinners. He was separated from human nature in its fallenness, but He was never separated from human beings.
The separation of Jesus was positive in its purpose, “that they … may be sanctified [separated] in truth” (John 17:19, ASV). He did not consider separation as an end in itself. The objective was to return an alienated race back to its fountainhead, back to its proper beginnings. Thus the pain of separation was all His, but the blessing of it was all ours.
God will call me to separation often, because He has people to reach and to reconcile. May I be as self-denying as Jesus was, and as full of love. May I be willing to leave my family, lifestyle, and personal goals in favor of the lost who need to be brought in. And may I always make a sharp distinction between separation from men and separation from their fallen nature. The greatest joy of self-separation is: “They have believed” (John 17:8, KJV). In the light of that, it will all have been worthwhile.
“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).
Daily with the King 