Set Apart - Will you see and love the One True God?

by Gresh Samtani

 

What if you woke up one morning to find out that the earth was separated into two different parts? Let’s just say that the 7 continents were divided into two separate worlds, where 4 would be in one and 3 in the other. 

 

Now, say Oceania, Asia and Europe make up one world, and South America, North America, Africa and Antarctica make the other, and they are separated by a chasm, wherein no one from one world, can in any way, travel, contact or reach anyone in the other world.

 

How would it be, this concept of a smaller world?

 

Now, consider this…

 

What if God resided in one world and not the other? 

 

What if God only befriended and listened to people of one world and not the next?

 

What if the salvation and blessings of God can be enjoyed by the people in one world, whereas the people of the other have no hope no matter what they do?

 

Now, imagine this….

 

What if the experience of blessing and God’s presence can be so tangibly enjoyed and felt in one world, and the suffering and torment of missing out on God and His forgiveness physically felt in the other.

 

There we have it… We have described the state of the two worlds, now let me just try to describe their citizens. Before I do that, to make it easier to understand let me name these two worlds. The one with God in it as heaven, and the other one hell (sorry, but that’s how I would describe it).

 

Being a citizen of heaven would be nothing less than enjoyable methinks. For one, you have the presence of God with you at all times. Think about it, this is God we speak of, the creator of the Universe, the guy who breathed life into all of us, and when I say all of us, I also mean people from the other world. The God who enabled the creation of every little thing man thought he achieved on his own, yes, that God. I would imagine myself having a laid back, attitude, enjoying every experience of life, knowing that the Creator has my back. In short, it is a life of hope, a life where everything that’s best for us will be allowed, and a life where the Creator’s love is real.

 

Now, hell. For one, I would think that a citizen of hell would be more diligent. Actually, no…there would be various kinds of attitudes there: the rebel for sure, the type of people who would just give up, and the kind of people who would diligently try to find and believe in anything and call it God. The name ‘hell’ is sometimes portrayed as a place where people are tormented by the heat of fire, and it might just be so, but what hurts and is sad about the citizens here is that, no matter what they do, the chasm between these two worlds disables their contact with the actual God, they are unable to have hope, and they continue being tormented by a feeling of regret and guilt, having missed out on heaven for things they thought mattered.

 

I was at a funeral the other day, and I had a heaviness instilled deep within me, that heaviness as if of a broken heart, a heaviness of feeling God’s broken heart. A heart broken through rejection, a heart broken through affection. 

 

God made man in his image, and those very images of Him that day, were diligently seeking the wrong side of that chasm. His heart breaks everyday for those He breathed life into and yet they might just never have a relationship with Him.

 

The Bible says, seek the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength and love Him only.

 

God is jealous for our love, not because He wants to control and dictate our lives, but because He wants to do anything it takes to gain our attention and love and lead us into that world….of life, hope and eternity.