Genesis 1:4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.
The word for separation in biblical Hebrew is “badal”, from which, I believe, we get the word ‘bad.’ We've all heard of the saying ‘separating the good from the bad’ and it is usually used by farmers and fruit growers when they are picking or gathering the harvest. But originally it meant a separation, a division, an exclusion of one from the other. In this instance from Genesis, light is termed as being ‘good’; and darkness is separated, presumably as being ‘bad.’
Right from the first chapter in Genesis, we see that God separates, divides, and even judges. Most people these days try to avoid thinking of God being judgmental, and want to throw out all the passages about punishment, wrath, and eternal separation. In fact, I was e-mailing a minister in North East Tennessee just last week about this subject. He doesn't believe that God will judge anyone. When I mentioned the Gospel passage about Dives the rich man, and Lazarus the poor man which Jesus told to reveal how God judged people by their actions, the other pastor wrote to say that he believed that the rich man would be eventually forgiven, despite the fact that the way Jesus told the story, there was no opportunity for redemption beyond death.
God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are unlike our own. When we try to cozy up to God and make Him into what we want, we've created an idol. God does separate; God does divide; and God does judge. The sooner we accept that, the quicker we can adapt our lives to fall into His ways by repenting of our mistakes and placing our souls into Christ’s nail-pierced hands.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, sometimes we are guilty of trying to shape You into what is acceptable to us, our culture, and our world. We forget that others tried to do that to You in
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