My husband needs the laptop this morning to do work, so I don’t have much time to write or read. So, after reading some more in 2 Corinthians, I headed over to Skip Moen’s site because it always challenges me to think. Here’s a link to a post from yesterday called “Reading Backwards” that kind of turned my brain upside down. I’m still digesting so I can’t really answer his question at the end yet. Happy Monday!
2 Corinthians 6:17
Therefore, come out from them and separate yourselves from them, says the Lord. Don’t touch their filthy things, and I will welcome you.
This seems to me to go against what Jesus said about loving others, and doesn’t make sense in light of the fact that Jesus walked in the world and touched the dirtiest people society had to offer. So, what does it mean?
Here’s Chuck Smith’s (a pastor) take on it:
So, God’s call for His people to separation. You are to be different from the world. You cannot have real communion with the world. You have no common ground of meeting. You’re trying to bring two diverse situations together. You’re trying to join together the life of the flesh with the life of the Spirit. They cannot co-mingle. It’s an unequal yoke. So, God’s call for you is to come apart. “Be separate, saith the Lord. Don’t touch the unclean thing. And God said, I will be a Father, and ye will be my sons and daughters.”
As a child of God, you do live different than a person who is not a child of God. You’re expected to live differently.
This makes a lot of sense. As children of God, it’s not that we’re physically going to separate ourselves and live in little communes. Jesus didn’t do that. He lived among us and walked among us and talked to people, ate with sinners, played with children, and healed the sick and dying. He didn’t get away from people and live all by himself in the wilderness. Instead, he lived differently than the people. He didn’t sin the way people sin (even the righteous sin). He didn’t lie or cheat or steal. He wasn’t violent (remember how he healed the man’s ear after Peter cut it off with a sword?). He lived differently and that set Him apart from the world. So we are to follow Jesus’ example and live differently. We should try to live like Jesus did – loving others and doing what is right.
My husband has to struggle with that a lot. Yesterday he felt like he was being asked by a client to do something that he didn’t feel was right or moral, and while he was discussing the situation with the people he is working for he offered to give up the contract even though we really do need the money. When they saw how serious he was about doing things right, they decided to back him up against the client that was asking him to be dishonest. I was so proud of him!!! That’s not an easy choice to make!
Anyhow, God doesn’t want us to never associate with lost people. If we never talked to them or walked among them then how will they ever know who Jesus is? How will they hear if we don’t go (it says that somewhere in the Bible)? So, it’s not about staying away from people who don’t know Jesus, it’s about doing life differently and being set apart in our morals and actions. Chuck Smith does make a good point, though, about not making an unbeliever our best friend. Our best friends tend to have a lot of influence in our lives because we tell them our deepest thoughts and listen to their counsel. So, that’s a good point. But it doesn’t mean that you don’t ever associate or hang out with non-believers. You just have to be wise and thoughtful in your actions.
2 Corinthians 5:16
So we have stopped evaluating others by what the world thinks about them. Once I mistakenly thought of Christ that way, as though he were merely a human being. How differently I think about him now!
The first part of this verse caught my attention. It’s a good reminder that we are called, by Christ, to stop judging people by the way others see them. Jesus loved people. He loved them whether they were good or bad, whether they were tax collectors (who were horribly hated) or adulterous women (a crime that carried a death penalty) or everyday citizens. The world judges people by what they look like or what they do or how they live. Even if we totally disagree with that part of their lives, Jesus still loves them. And we should to. We don’t have to love their actions or their lifestyle, but we should love them and accept them and try to be Jesus with skin on (showing them His love). Jesus never condemned people (except for the religious leaders – isn’t that ironic?). We shouldn’t either.
I can hear you now – but Jesus was God! He was super-human. It was easy for Him to do that.
Maybe. He was in a human body with human emotions. And even if he did have an easy time doing that, it’s His strength that He gives us that help us to be like Him. We’re not in this alone.
God loves us. We should love others.
The end.
2 Corinthians 4:9
We are hunted down, but God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we get up again and keep going.
I am feeling hunted this morning. At work I feel like “Big Brother” is watching every move I make so he can pounce on any small mistake to use against me. And now, I get that feeling at home, too. I haven’t felt like this since I was a child. It’s really frustrating because I can’t ask the questions I want to ask or make the observations that I want to make. So, I’m praying for God’s grace and patience in the situation. This verse spoke to my heart because God doesn’t abandon me. He’s not like the watchful, vengeful spirits or people that are just waiting for something to comment on or use to make a point. He doesn’t lay in wait for me to make a mistake or do something he doesn’t like. He is always there and doesn’t leave me when I’m in a precarious position. When I feel crushed under the weight of the fishbowl, He is there to give me His support so that I can get back up and keep going. That’s what I need now.
2 Corinthians 3:18
And all of us have had that veil removed so that we can be mirrors that brightly reflect the glory of the Lord. And as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him and reflect his glory even more.
This makes me see a mirror with a sheet over it (I tried to find a picture of this but had no luck). It doesn’t do anything or reflect anything under that sheet. It certainly doesn’t reflect the person in front of it, which is its purpose. With the veil/sheet gone the mirror can finally fulfill its purpose – to reflect God’s glory.
So many times I wonder what my purpose it. It seems like I should be doing something more for God. But, if the analogy of the mirror holds true. My purpose is simply to reflect God and His glory to the world. So, a business person reflects God by holding to his or her integrity throughout a difficult situation. A teacher loves the students he or she has in class. A student chooses honesty over cheating and kindness over alienating the unusual kid.
Doing something for God is kind of funny because we really can’t do things for God. Usually when we try to do something for God we make a huge mess of it. Or we end up with this whole “if I do something better then God will love me more” kind of mentality. This is ludicrous because God couldn’t love us more than he already does.
