Separation

by TerryLema

I opened Facebook on Sunday morning and saw pictures of our youngest grandson. He had a birthday last week and we missed being there.  He also had a speech contest at school and scored a “red excellent ribbon.” We missed that also.

We have always lived far away from two grandsons; we are in Idaho and they are in California.  To drive there requires a full day going and another returning. It isn’t a trip we can make very often, thus, we miss a lot of their day-to-day lives.  Sometimes, like last week, we miss the special occasions also.

I hate being separated. I become envious when I look around and see other grandparents having everyday relationships with their grandchildren.  Yet I know that many of us are separated from our families; we are a very mobile society. People move and travel with job changes and economy fluctuations. Some of us have also suffered the loss of family members and the depth of that separation is so much greater.

As I ruminated over all this Sunday morning, I was reminded that the ugliest of all separations is the one we can experience because we have rejected God’s call to salvation. Hebrews 6 reminds us of some of the fundamental, basic elements of Christianity: repentance, faith, baptisms, the laying on of hands, resurrection, and one other – eternal judgment.  [vs 1-2]

Unfortunately, the modern church seldom reminds people that there is a significance to rejecting God’s salvation. Salvation is two-sided, to accept is resurrection from the dead into the very presence of God; to reject or ignore is eternal judgment. We need not constantly preach “hell fire & brimstone,” but we must acknowledge that there is a consequence to every choice—especially the decision regarding Jesus the Christ.

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