December 24 – Separate Me From The World

Hope for Today: A Daily Devotion from Reasons for Hope*Jesus

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“For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth.” Exodus 33:16

Reader, do you adopt the language of Moses and request with him that in all your removals, God’s presence may go with you? That you be not permitted to stir without this distinguishing testimony that you are in the path of duty? Are you waiting upon the Lord, earnest to serve Him in sincerity and truth, not being conformed to this world — but transformed by the renewing of your mind, and desirous to be numbered with His peculiar people?

Then you may expect the Divine blessing, and that your way will be prosperous. It was a distinguishing privilege of the Israelites, that they were to “dwell alone,” and not to be reckoned among the nations; and it is the privilege and duty of the church to be separate and distinct from the world.

We are a separate people in the love of God, in our election in Christ, in the covenant of grace made with us in Him, in effectual calling, in our being seated with Him at His right hand in the day of judgment, and in our being with Him for all eternity. Nor are we reckoned among the nations — but are called out of them and generally treated as the refuse and off-scouring of all things. We do not reckon ourselves to be of the world — but as pilgrims and strangers in it.

O my God, separate me from the world. Conform me to Yourself. And may all acknowledge me as Yours!

Devotion by Karl Heinrich von Bogatzky (1690—1774)