I call this lesson “The Separation.” “And God set [these lights he’s talking about] in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:17-18, ESV).

God is always creating a separation. At the end of the age, He will separate the sheep from the goats. At the harvest, He will separate the wheat from the chaff. The Israelites sat in the light, while the Egyptians were blanketed in darkness. Jacob He loved and Esau He hated. Shem He blessed and Canaan He cursed.

It struck me to see it from the very beginning, the literal beginning. God created the lights in the skies. He separated the light from the darkness. This is a literal light and darkness, but it is how God operates. He separates light from darkness. In 1 John 1, we read that in God there is no darkness at all. God is light. If we want to be holy, which means separated unto Him, on His side of the divide, then we have to be light. We can’t walk in darkness and think we’re on God’s side of the separation.

Psalm 4:3, “But know that the LORD has set apart for Himself him who is godly; The LORD will hear when I call to Him” (NKJV). Here God defines the one set apart for Himself: the godly; those whose thoughts are toward God. Jesus defines the thoughts of man as “get-behind-me Satan” thoughts. Paul warns that those whose thoughts are on this world will end in destruction. Those set apart to God have their thoughts on God and on the things of the Spirit.

Malachi 3:17-18 says, “‘They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him” (ESV). It says that once more we’ll see the distinction. That means we don’t always see the distinction now. While the arc of a believer’s life is one of blessing, it doesn’t look the same now as it did during the plagues. The good and the bad happen to the righteous and the wicked. The difference now is that the righteous suffer for the sake of righteousness.

The same thing may happen to a believer and to a nonbeliever, but a believer knows that God is using it to bring Himself glory and for the good of the believer. The believer isn’t suffering under the punishment for sin but is training in righteousness. It may look like the same hard thing on the outside, but it’s a blessing to the believer and a curse to the wicked. There is a separation.