An Example of Repentance that Leads to Salvation

In 2Corinthians 6:14 (ESV), Paul says, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?”   (17-18) Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty."

This passage has been wrongly used by many in the church to separate themselves completely from the broken and lost, to isolate themselves in what they believe to be a righteous Christian bubble.  However, these verses are not a call for religious isolation that separates the believer from the society around them, but instead a plea holy and righteous behaviour in the midst of a sin bound world.

What partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?  The answer is “none!”  These verses are God’s call for a believer to demonstrate a holy integrity, to “be in the world, but not of the world.”  In John 17:15 (ESV) Jesus prayed, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.”   Jesus has asked the Father for our protection. We have nothing to fear.   We can be Jesus, show Jesus, demonstrate Jesus to a lost and broken world.

There is no way to witness to God’s love and redemption from within the cocoon of the Christian community. If you build it, they will NOT come.  We are called to be among, to walk along-side those that so desperately need to experience God’s grace and mercy.

The purpose of the admonition in 2Corinthians 6 and 7 is reconciliation… redemption and restoration. It is always God’s will and intent to restore.  Even when He punishes iniquity, the purpose is restoration, repentance and return…to be grieved into repenting. For, “Godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret.” 2Corinthains 7:10 (ESV) The exhortation for us to come out from among them is a call to avoids their sin, to be a righteous example of repentance that leads to salvation.

God IS Able!

(1Cor.9:8 NIV) “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” 

That would be my prayer today and for these next few months…no actually, forever please.  I pray that the Lord would make all grace abound in me.  Lord, I know that even though I possess all things, have great spiritual gifts, abundant wealth, unless I have Your grace, none of it amounts to a hill of beans!

Grace = Sufficiency.  If I am possessed of grace, then it doesn’t really matter how little or how much resource I may have at my disposal.  It will always be sufficient!  It will be sufficient in all things and at all times…and is made manifest through God’s grace and mercy as “abundance” whatever its size! It is sufficient for every good work that I am called into.  

So Lord, thank you for supplying sufficient and multiplying my seed for sowing, that we may increase the harvest of righteousness in this community. 

Original Sin

As a young believer I had some serious questions about the whole concept of “original sin”.  It is a hard thing to accept that humanity is inherently evil and in desperate need of saving.  Our society tells us to believe just the opposite. We are encouraged to seek the good in all people, to be positive and accepting of all…even in the face of almost universal moral degradation.  How can this be?  How did we get to this place?

Over the last three months I have been reading the stories of Israel’s relationship with Yahweh as they approached the “promised land.  In  the book of Numbers we find a God who appeared to all of them in the cloud, fed them and protected them. Yet over and over again, they rebelled.  They knew what would happen when they sinned, yet they blasphemed and brazenly disobeyed God’s commands.

They had even been given an avenue to forgiveness and redemption.  Moses told them that God was….”slow to anger, rich in unfailing love & forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion”, but that he also left, “every kind of un-repented sin unpunished.”   It wasn’t as if they didn’t know…just as we know.  There is forgiveness, but there are also consequences.  Perhaps, we like they, don’t actually believe in either, and therein is the distinguishing mark of original sin. 

We have also been given an avenue for forgiveness and redemption… the cross of Christ!  Only there can the embedded darkness in the heart of man be shattered so that we can find a way into the light!