2 Corinthians 6:12-18
11-13 Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!
14-18 Don’t become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That’s not partnership; that’s war. Is light best friends with dark? Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands? Who would think of setting up pagan idols in God’s holy Temple? But that is exactly what we are, each of us a temple in whom God lives. God himself put it this way:
“I’ll live in them, move into them;
I’ll be their God and they’ll be my people.
So leave the corruption and compromise;
leave it for good,” says God.
“Don’t link up with those who will pollute you.
I want you all for myself.
I’ll be a Father to you;
you’ll be sons and daughters to me.”
The Word of the Master, God.
I hope that you catch the passion and the invitation, the wisdom in those words. This is one of my favorite scriptures because it is about freedom in Christ. How do we live that wide open spacious life? We have to choose it. We have to open ourselves up to the pleasure and enjoyment, the adventure that the Lord offers. And He gives us wise boundaries - His instruction is that we are not to partner with those who reject God, whose lives are ones of corruption and compromise, because corruption and compromise spread are very contagious. We are to keep ourselves pure by living fully and openly in the truth and by partnering with people who love God and love truth. Our boundaries are to be the Word and instruction of God, not boundaries of self-limitation, excuses and fear. The Bible tells us many many times do not fear, be of good courage. Nothing is impossible with God.
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