You can almost hear Paul’s heart crying out in this chapter! “We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” (Vs. 1)
There is a fine line between a carnal Christian and a “Christian” whom Christ never knew. The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable (Romans 11:29); once saved, you are forever saved. NO ONE can snatch you out of your Father’s hand. However, if your faith is genuine, it will endure. If you are among those who turn back, or “fall away,” or contentedly practice sin, then it very likely that you have deceived yourself. You are not saved and you never were.
Many of the Corinthians, it seems, were perilously close to this point, and Paul knew it. He loved these people as his precious children in the faith, yet here they were, separating themselves further and further from the Lord, and becoming married to the world. Come back, Paul is pleading. I was there! I remember the day you claimed to have accepted the Lord! He granted me the privilege of laboring with Him for you! Don’t let that day be in vain!
Paul laid himself out there for the Corinthians. He held nothing back. He spoke openly and his heart was wide open, longing for them. “And I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved.” (2 Corinthians 12:15)
Tragically, the more Paul reached out to the Corinthians, and the more Christlike his love for them became, the more they pushed him away. What else was to be expected? Those in the Corinth fellowship who were divorcing themselves from the Lord would, as a result, naturally divorce themselves from Paul. “For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?” (Vs. 14-16)
“We give no offense in anything, that our ministry may not be blamed. But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.” (Vs. 3-10)
It wasn’t Paul who had caused the rift between him and his children in the faith. He even hated having to lay out his innocence or credibility for them. (2 Corinthians 12:11, “I have become a fool in boasting; you have compelled me.”) Paul’s heart was open. The Corinthians may have blamed him for whatever troubles they were having, but it was their own adulterous affections that restricted them from the fullness of the Lord. They were behaving as prideful, stubborn, rebellious children, willfully trying to be a part of the world they ought to have had no part in.
Be open! Paul begs them. Don’t cut yourself off from your Creator! Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers! There is nothing to be gained by joining with the world. It does not profit; it chews you up, spits you out, and leaves you in outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth – forever. The world’s lures are deceptive. Its bait conceals a hook. It way leads to destruction. It is apart from God, and apart from God there is nothing good. Paul knew all this, and he earnestly desired the Corinthians to know it too, before they had to learn it the hard way.
James 4:4-5, “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, ‘The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously’?”
If you divorce yourself from the Lord and His people to follow the world’s system, you are, in fact, choosing the very definition of “hell.” Hell is separation from God. We know that every “good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” (James 1:17) But what happens when the human soul refuses all that is good? The Lord gave us free will. He will honor our choice. He will ultimately give that soul its own way – and there is, perhaps, nothing quite so chillingly devastating.
Paul did not want his Corinthian beloved to stand before Christ and hear the crushing words, “‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” (Matthew 22:23)
The rift between the Corinthians and Paul was simply a manifestation of a greater rift, one that was between the Corinthians and their Lord. Jesus gave His heart’s blood, His very life, to heal that kind of rift. You have a choice. Jesus pleads with you, even now, just as He pled with the Corinthians. Please don’t turn Him away.
2 Corinthians 6:17-18, “‘Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.’ ‘I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty.’”
There is a fine line between a carnal Christian and a “Christian” whom Christ never knew. The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable (Romans 11:29); once saved, you are forever saved. NO ONE can snatch you out of your Father’s hand. However, if your faith is genuine, it will endure. If you are among those who turn back, or “fall away,” or contentedly practice sin, then it very likely that you have deceived yourself. You are not saved and you never were.
Many of the Corinthians, it seems, were perilously close to this point, and Paul knew it. He loved these people as his precious children in the faith, yet here they were, separating themselves further and further from the Lord, and becoming married to the world. Come back, Paul is pleading. I was there! I remember the day you claimed to have accepted the Lord! He granted me the privilege of laboring with Him for you! Don’t let that day be in vain!
Paul laid himself out there for the Corinthians. He held nothing back. He spoke openly and his heart was wide open, longing for them. “And I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved.” (2 Corinthians 12:15)
Tragically, the more Paul reached out to the Corinthians, and the more Christlike his love for them became, the more they pushed him away. What else was to be expected? Those in the Corinth fellowship who were divorcing themselves from the Lord would, as a result, naturally divorce themselves from Paul. “For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?” (Vs. 14-16)
“We give no offense in anything, that our ministry may not be blamed. But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.” (Vs. 3-10)
It wasn’t Paul who had caused the rift between him and his children in the faith. He even hated having to lay out his innocence or credibility for them. (2 Corinthians 12:11, “I have become a fool in boasting; you have compelled me.”) Paul’s heart was open. The Corinthians may have blamed him for whatever troubles they were having, but it was their own adulterous affections that restricted them from the fullness of the Lord. They were behaving as prideful, stubborn, rebellious children, willfully trying to be a part of the world they ought to have had no part in.
Be open! Paul begs them. Don’t cut yourself off from your Creator! Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers! There is nothing to be gained by joining with the world. It does not profit; it chews you up, spits you out, and leaves you in outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth – forever. The world’s lures are deceptive. Its bait conceals a hook. It way leads to destruction. It is apart from God, and apart from God there is nothing good. Paul knew all this, and he earnestly desired the Corinthians to know it too, before they had to learn it the hard way.
James 4:4-5, “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, ‘The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously’?”
If you divorce yourself from the Lord and His people to follow the world’s system, you are, in fact, choosing the very definition of “hell.” Hell is separation from God. We know that every “good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” (James 1:17) But what happens when the human soul refuses all that is good? The Lord gave us free will. He will honor our choice. He will ultimately give that soul its own way – and there is, perhaps, nothing quite so chillingly devastating.
Paul did not want his Corinthian beloved to stand before Christ and hear the crushing words, “‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” (Matthew 22:23)
The rift between the Corinthians and Paul was simply a manifestation of a greater rift, one that was between the Corinthians and their Lord. Jesus gave His heart’s blood, His very life, to heal that kind of rift. You have a choice. Jesus pleads with you, even now, just as He pled with the Corinthians. Please don’t turn Him away.
2 Corinthians 6:17-18, “‘Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.’ ‘I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty.’”
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