2 Corinthians Lesson 11
First & Second Corinthians
Lesson 11-2nd Corinthians Chapters 5-7
By Cindy Ketron
On The Edge of Eternity
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Getting old is for the birds! I tell all my young friends, enjoy being in your young healthy body while you have your youth because if you live very long at all, your body will start failing you and your beauty will fade. Last week, we looked at the temporal body and the spiritual/eternal body. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to go back in time with the mind you have now and the body you had then? Most of us have wondered that. That could be dangerous! As believers, our spirits strengthen the longer we live and our bodies wear out the longer we live. My old house that I’m living in now needs a new paint job and new pipes! You see, what we see with our eyes is not what exists eternally.
Read 2 Cor. 5:1-9. A lot of funerals have passages from 1 Cor. 15 read at the service. Many also have 2 Cor. 5:1-9 read. What solace the words of Paul offer to those who are either dying or to those who have lost a loved one. The word “house” in v. 1 is translated as tabernacle or tent. Paul knew a little bit about tents. He made them for a living.
What was the tabernacle in the Old Testament made of?
The tabernacle was a temporary structure. It wasn’t made to last forever. The analogy drawn is that our bodies are temporary structures. They were not made to last forever after the fall of man.
There was an orderly fashion in which the camp would move:
1. East - The tribes of Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun located on the east side of the tabernacle led the march.
2. South - The tribes of Reuben, Simeon, and Gad camping south followed the first group.
3. Levites - The Levites who carried the tabernacle moved in the center of the other 2 camps.
4. West - The tribes of Ephriam, Manassah, and Benjamin, located on the west side marched next.
5. North - The tribes of Dan, Asher, and Naphtali positioned on the north side, formed the rear guard.
This is the picture that Paul is painting in these first 9 verses. Every family packed up their own tent, but the most important tent, the tabernacle was carefully packed and transported according to specific instructions found in Numbers 2.
2. How will our tabernacle be dissolved?
Verse 2 speaks of groaning in our current “house”. My husband is a big sigher. Sometimes if he gets up before me in the mornings, he will grunt and sigh so loud that it wakes me up just from his little noises. I often wake up and say to him, “Stop making your little man noises!” And I ask him why he has to do that and his reply is always the same, he has aches and pains when he first stands up. This is the curse of living in a temporary body.
3. Also in this verse, what is it that we will desire?
When we are young, death seems far away and so very frightening. For those of us who have a little age on us, the older we get, the more we look towards heaven and the sweeter heaven seems to us. As older believers, the thought of death doesn’t seem nearly as scary as it once did. With the passing of each loved one who knew the Lord, we long to see them again.
2 Cor. 5:3-4 are interesting verses. Of course we do not want to be found naked!
4. So, if we’re not naked, what will we be wearing?
Isaiah 61:10
Rev. 19:8
One of these verses speaks metaphorically to what we’ll be wearing and one of them speaks literally to what we’ll be wearing. You see, as sinners, we have certain clothes in our closet. Those clothes may be deceit, anger, malice, etc.
But when we become born again, we get a whole new wardrobe! You can tell a lot about a person by the clothes they wear. There is a transformation that occurs within the believer when he/she accepts Christ and that person is moved away from a life of unrighteousness to a life of righteousness. That doesn’t mean that we are good or that we don’t sin after conversion. It means that we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ and when God looks at us, we are covered with His clothing of righteousness.
Sometimes we speak of certain people as being “comfortable in their own skin”. I always thought of Ronald Regan in those terms. There is a sense in which we are all comfortable in our own skin because it’s the only skin we’ve ever been in! Therefore, we feel at home. But 2 Cor. 5:6 tells us that as long as we’re living in our skin, we’re not living somewhere else.
5. Where are we not living?
2 Cor. 5:7 is a famous verse and one that most of us remind ourselves of on a regular basis.
6. What does walking by faith mean to you?
The very reason that we are told to walk by faith is because on this side of heaven, we cannot see, hear, or touch anything in the spiritual realm. Walking by faith may mean that we are going against our natural inclinations. Let me give you an example. Let’s say that you are a person who needs to know that you have a certain amount of money in the bank and a certain amount of money coming in every month (that would be most of us). And let’s say that your spouse loses his job and you lose your job. Your natural inclination might be to freak out! My husband calls my freaking out moments “going to defcon 10”! To walk by faith in this situation would be to have peace in the midst of this storm because you know that Jesus is going to take care of you. Proverbs 3:5-6 gives us 3 spiritual steps to take in making sure that we’re walking by faith.
7. What are they?
1.
2.
3.
There is no way the Apostle Paul could have managed the life he lived if he had lived it in his own strength. Theologians think that Paul was about 60 years old when he died. That was a good long life by 1st century standards.
Paul spent his last days in a Roman prison under deplorable circumstances.
8. What hope did he have during this time? (2 Tim. 4:6-8)
After Paul was beheaded in Rome, tradition states that his body was buried outside the city walls, near the Via Ostiensis, on the estate of a Christian woman named Lucina. A marble sarcophagus at this tomb reads, “Paulo Apostolo Mart”. Radiocarbon dating of the bone fragments from this tomb indicate that they are from the 1st or 2nd century. Oh friends, there will be a day when his incorruptible head rejoins his incorruptible body in the air. He didn’t just think that would happen, he absolutely knew it would.
9. Look back to your homework in 1 Cor. 15:51-53. What do you learn about whether this will be just a spiritual body or a physical body and why? (Refer to the part of your homework where we talked about the Greek word, anastasis.)
10. Bottom line, if it is the physical body that is put in the ground and goes to sleep, then it will be the physical body that is raised. For the believer, where will they be when they exit their physical body?
For the unbeliever, when they exit their physical body, where will they be?
2 Cor. 5:9 speaks of being accepted in Him.
11. According to Ephesians 1:5-6 and 1 Cor. 1:30, how is this accomplished?
What motivates you to do the work of the Lord? One of the greatest pastors and preachers that Todd and I have ever known was Clay Frazier. He is the pastor who married us. He is the pastor who did our pre-marital counseling. We both loved him so much. He had a son, Chuck, who also became a pastor, and like his father, he had the potential to be the pastor of a megachurch. Chuck once told my husband, Todd, that he once sought to be the pastor of a huge church and then the Lord spoke to his heart and told him to just be a servant. It changed his entire outlook on his ministry and he has never looked back. It is okay to be ambitious for the Lord. We should all be that. But if our own ambitions enter into the equation, then we are not laboring for God, we are laboring for ourselves.
12. Read 2 Cor. 5:10. What is the purpose of the judgement seat of Christ?
This is the bema seat. Only Christians will be at this judgment and we will not be judged for our sins, because Jesus covered all of our sins for us on the cross. But we will be judged on what we did with Christ while on this earth. Because I write and speak so much, I can get caught up in the “me” of it all and I am constantly having to do a heart-check just to make sure that my ambition is grounded for the Lord and not for myself. You see, I will have to stand before the Lord one day just like you will and give an account of what I did while in this body.
One of the most moving testimonies to this making your life count thing happened on April , 2011. That was the day my sweet Gabe was found to have a 3 ½ cm malignant tumor at the base of his brain. When we got to the ER, he asked for his youth minister and when John came in, Gabe was crying. He said to John, “I’m 19 years old and if I die tonight, I haven’t done one thing for the Lord.” I will never forget those words. He was far more concerned about the fact that he might be going into the presence of God that night without having done anything for Him than he was about dying in general. We should all be like that.
13. Read 2 Cor. 5:11-15. What do you think would happen if sermons were preached on hell in the pulpits across our country?
Hell is not always the most popular of topics. In fact, preaching on hell might even run off a good many people from churches. I opened 1 sermon by Joel Osteen on Youtube and listened to 30 seconds and here’s what he said, “God accepts you and approves you right where you are, faults and all mistakes, shortcomings, not when you overcome but right now. He knows you’re on a journey. He’s changing you little by little. He accepts you. Now you have to accept yourself. He approves you. Now you have to approve yourself.”
If I was an unbeliever and I walked into a church and heard this, I would think I had it made. Is there anything in this statement that sounds even remotely close to 2 Cor. 5:10-11?
Some of what he said is accurate, but some of it is grossly inaccurate. So many pastors only preach what people’s itching ears want to hear.
14. In the following verses, list the difference between what believers have to fear and what unbelievers have to fear?
Luke 12:5
Hebrews 10:31
Hebrews 12:28-29
We can never have a discussion about salvation with an unbeliever without talking about sin and we should always encourage believers to live in the awe and reverence of God. Today, if the message of the fear of the Lord and of judgement comes up in churches, then a lot of people are offended. Never mind the fact that God is offended by our sin.
15. For what reason is Paul doing what he’s doing? (v. 13)
In v. 15, “If one died for all, then all were dead” means that if Jesus died for everyone, that means that everyone is/was dead in their sins.
16. What happened to Adam and Eve in the perfect and beautiful Garden of Eden after they sinned? (Gen. 3:7)
Can you even fathom living your life prior to that time with no shame…..ever. No guilt….ever. No knowledge of evil…..ever. No experience of evil…..ever. Yeah, neither can I. Adam and Eve are the only 2 people in the history of the world who knew perfection.
17. After their original sin, what did God have to do? (Gen. 3:21)
This is the first shedding of blood in the Bible and it set forth a principle in God’s economy of a blood sacrifice atoning for sin. There is one show that I refuse to watch on tv (there’s actually a whole lot of shows I refuse to watch). When the show, “The Walking Dead” first started, it was all the rage. It was just too creepy for me to watch. We are ALL the walking dead until the giver of life breathes new life into us.
18. What do you learn about this concept in John 1:4?
19. Read 2 Cor. 5:16-19. In v. 17, how do we not continue to remain as corpses or the “walking dead?”
We were all once so far away from God and we had no way of drawing near on our own. Have you ever stopped and asked anyone for directions, and they replied, “Oh, you can’t get there from here!” There is only 1 way to get “there” (heaven) from “here” (where you were in your sins).
20. What is that? (Eph. 2:13)
For those of us who are in Christ, we are a new creation. This is the ministry of reconciliation. At its core, reconciliation signifies a change of places from one side to the other. You see, our sin has created this great chasm between ourselves and God and it is only through a relationship with Christ that the chasm is bridged making a way for us to be with God. Most of you don’t know this, but I am a certified family mediator for the state of Tennessee. Mediation is about reconciliation of some kind of peaceful relationship/arrangement after a dispute has occurred. In a divorce mediation, change and compromise has to occur. It is different in our reconciliation with God. He doesn’t change. He never changes, but He changes us and as a result, our relationship with
Him changes. Jesus Christ is our Mediator. God was NEVER to blame for our estrangement from Him. We are always the offending party.
I love this quote from a Christian theologian:
“We are no longer enemies, ungodly, sinners, or powerless. Instead, the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit whom He has given to us (Romans 5:5) It is a change in the total state of our lives.” (“Reconciliation,” Woodruff, W., Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, Elwell, W., ed., Baker Books, 1996)
21. Read 2 Cor. 5:20-21. What is an ambassador in general?
22. Can an American citizen be an ambassador to the United States?
It is understood that if you are an ambassador, then you are assigned to another foreign government as an official representative of the United States. In other words, you are a foreigner as an ambassador to another country.
23. What does Paul say about our citizenship in Phil. 3:20?
Anytime that war begins between 2 nations, the first thing that happens is that the ambassadors are called home to their own country. Every single believer in Christ is an ambassador down here on earth. The foreign ambassadors we send out from the U.S. are generally people who have a certain educational background and who can speak the language of the country they are assigned to, and they must have some kind of governmental work experience.
24. How are ambassadors for Christ chosen? (2 Cor. 5:20)
Read 2 Cor. 6:1-10. In your Bibles, you will notice that the words with Him are written in italics. That means those words were added at a later time probably by translators to make it more readable. In v. 1 how is it even
possible to “receive the grace of God in vain”? To understand v. 1, we need to first of all figure out what is meant by the word grace. Grace is a term that is used repeatedly in Scripture. The first place we see this word used is in Gen. 6:8.
25.Who found grace with the Lord?
If you recall this story, the entire world was condemned because all they thought about or did was evil continuously. Only 8 people were spared from this catastrophic event. And it was the grace of God who saved them. The Bible opens with grace and it closes with grace in Rev. 22:21.
26. What does it say?
Don’t you love that the bookends of Scripture are all about grace?!!! How incredible is that? Grace is God’s unmerited favor. It’s not that we did a thing to earn or deserve it. We can’t. We have no way of doing that. If we could do something to earn God’s favor, then we couldn’t call that grace, we’d have to call that something else. The ark didn’t have a “no vacancy” sign hanging on it. That thing was enormous and there would have been plenty of room for others. They refused to repent of their evil. And because of their refusal, God did not show them grace.
27. What do you learn about grace from the following verses?
Psalm 145:8
John 1:14, 17
Eph. 2:7-9
Ok, this still does not answer our original question. Now that we have a better understanding of grace, then how is it possible to receive the grace of God in vain? In a couple of weeks, we’ll be looking at perhaps why Paul is making this impassioned plea to this church not to waste the grace of God.
28. How does he express this in 2 Cor. 11:3-4?
Paul is not saying in v. 1 of chapter 6 that those who have accepted Jesus can lose their salvation. He has already told them in 2 Cor. 1:21-22 that they were sealed or protected. What he is telling them is that all of his hard work need not be undone. He did not want his spiritual children in this church to be deceived by false teachers who had snuck into the church. His first epistle to them laid out all the craziness going on there. So, while he had already told them that they were safe from hell because of their salvation, was it possible that there were some in this church who had not actually been saved to start with?
29. Are there people in your church who might not be saved?
30. The very ones who would be of biggest risk to listening to the false teachers within the church were the unsaved unregenerate ones. What does he end up telling them at the end of this book to do? (2 Cor. 13:5)
31.Paul was also worried about the church at Galatia for the same reason that he was concerned about this Corinthian church. What does he warn this church about in Gal. 1:6-9?
There were 4 groups of people in the Corinthian church:
1. Those who were truly saved and were following the mandates of God and growing in the sanctifying process. These are the ones who were listening to Paul’s advice and following it.
2. Those who were truly saved and were not growing in the sanctification process. If you recall from our study of 1 Corinthians, these believers are called “unnatural” because it is unnatural to be saved and not have any spiritual growth.
3. Those who were truly saved and were legalistic about following the Law to the tee. Those in this category did not rely on the power of the Spirit to live their lives, but instead, they relied on their own flesh.
4. Those who were carnal and not saved at all.
Of course, Paul’s biggest concern is that those who didn’t know the true gospel in the first place would be in mortal danger if they believed any of these false teachers. I think you guys remember that during the time we were in 1 Corinthians, I lost a notebook full of notes to type for one of your
lessons. I never did find it. It really made me sick and anxious and mad that I lost it. I didn't really have the time or energy to start over from scratch and see if I could get it all back onto paper, but that’s exactly what I had to do. It was a very stressful week. Nobody wants to see all their hard work go to waste. Paul had a lot of blood, sweat, and tears (literally) that he had poured into this church and he didn’t want it to be wasted or in vain.
In 2 Cor. 6:2, he seems to be expressing an urgency to the spreading of the real gospel and the acceptance of salvation by quoting the Old Testament verses Isaiah 49:8 and Psalm 32:6.
32. What do you learn about the urgency of accepting God’s grace in the following verses?
Gen. 6:3
Isaiah 55:6
Hosea 5:6
There is absolutely an urgency in sharing the truth of God’s love.
33. What do you find about the then (during John’s day) and now (during our day) in John 4:35?
Friends, now is not the time to wonder if you should share the gospel. Now is not the time to vacillate on whether or not you want or need to share with someone.
34. What did Jesus say to us in John 9:4 about working for the gospel?
Here is how God’s grace towards you could be in vain…..if you choose not to share the truth of the gospel with those whom God places in your path. We are absolutely living in the last days before the return of Jesus Christ. Noah lived in the last days before the rain fell. Many perished then, and many will perish in the future. When you get up every morning, ask God this question, “Father, allow me to see those who need You around me and give me the words and the courage to tell them about You.” And guess what? If you pray that prayer, He will answer that prayer!
35. 2 Cor. 6:3-10 gives us the manner in which we should share the gospel. What does v. 3 say about this?
“Giving no offense” does not mean necessarily that you don’t hurt the other person’s feelings. It means that you don’t act and speak in a manner that brings God into a bad light. May no one ever say of any of us, “Well, I don’t want to know God because of the way she lives. If God is her God, then I couldn’t have any confidence in Him.”
36. In the following verses in 2 Cor. 6, what manner are we to deliver the gospel?
V. 4
V. 5
V. 6
V. 7
V. 8
V. 9
V. 10
In 2 Cor. 6:11-13, Paul again pleads with them and you see his vulnerability and his heart. His affection towards them reveals that he views them as his children. I can tell you as the family member of more than 1 relative with addiction issues that there is nothing more maddening than loving an addicted person. You can cry to them. You can plead with them. You can draw lines in the sand with them. But until they surrender their will to the will of the Father, they will not be healed. So many of the people in the church at Corinth were addicted to sin. Paul had cried with them and over them. He had pleaded with them. He had helped them to understand where the boundary lines were and begged them not to cross those lines. He loved them so much that his heart hurt on their behalf.
Read 2 Cor. 6:14-18. These are some of the most misinterpreted and abused verses in the Bible. We are going to break them down. A yoke is a tool for plowing fields. The yoke is fastened around the necks of 2 animals and attached to a cart. The animals who were yoked together would have been similar in size and strength. Imagine having a big ole ox and a billy goat yoked together. This hardly seems fair. When my son, Colton, was in college, he worked for a moving company to earn extra cash. Let me tell you, that is a hard job indeed! If you know my Colton, then you know that he is built like the Incredible Hulk and he’s as strong as an ox! My husband, Todd, used to joke with him and say, “He’s strong as an ox and half as smart!” Colton would often complain to me that he got paired with the scrawniest little guys, which meant that he was the one bearing much of the burden for the lifting.
Keep in mind what a yoke is and let’s look at the purpose in a yoke.
Yokes often symbolized oppression or slavery.
Yokes often symbolized the sharing of a burden.
37. What kind of yoke did King Rehoboam try to instill against his people in 1 Kings 12:11?
38. In what context is yoke used in Isaiah 10:27?
39. During Paul’s day, the analogy of a yoke would have been easily understood. What did Jesus mean in Matthew 11:28 by “an easy yoke?”
Yes, He is steering us where we need to go, and He never ever meant for us to carry all of life’s burdens upon our shoulders. That is too much for any human being and many who have tried to carry their own burden have collapsed under the weight of it. He helps us with that burden. He carries us.
40. Go back to our verses in 2 Corinthians. What would signify if someone was unequally yoked to someone else?
41. In Psalm 106:28 and Numbers 25:5, what did the ancient Israelites yoke themselves to?
Both of these verses indicate that if a believer puts himself or herself in a relationship with someone who is not a believer, then the yoke (what binds them together) is going to cause them to pull in 2 different directions and what chaos that would create! A marriage is a solemn binding contract that we enter into in the presence of God. It is supposed to be a permanent relationship. If we are putting ourselves in the very difficult situation of marrying an unbeliever, then our marriage won’t be the kind of marriage that glorifies the Lord. Our children will not be raised in a 2-parent home where both parents are on the same page. How confusing is that for kids?! Evangelistic dating and evangelistic marriage is not a good idea. In fact, Paul warns us here not to do this. God used the analogy of the yoke all the way back in Deut. 22:10.
42. What is not supposed to be yoked together?
Most of us are not agricultural people, so we wouldn’t understand this verse. One of these animals is a clean animal (ox) and one is an unclean animal (ass). God would not allow them to yoke a clean and an unclean animal together. The analogy that Paul uses here is a direct analogy. A clean person (believer)
should not be yoked together with an unclean person (unbeliever). This is not just in marriage, it is in other areas of life as well like a business relationship. Entering into a permanent or a long-term relationship with someone who does not have a biblical worldview is going to cause an imbalance in a bad way. If you can see it and prevent it, then you would be foolish to do it.
43. In 2 Cor. 6:16, what metaphor does Paul use to describe the Christian?
44. Can you imagine bringing a satanist into the pulpit of your church? Why wouldn’t you do that?
If you wouldn’t do that, then why even consider a union between a believer and a nonbeliever? A marriage of this type would be exactly like bringing a pagan into your church and allowing him to preach a pagan sermon. That
seems preposterous to us, and yet, too many Christians engage in long-term relationships with those who do not share their spiritual values every single day.
45. 2 Cor. 6:16-18 gives the reason that we should not be bound together with unbelievers. What is it?
The concept of “temple” shifts from a physical structure to the believer’s body in these verses. We should treat our physical bodies, minds, and spirits as sacred because within each of us as believers resides the presence of our holy God. If you recall, we studied in 1 Cor. 3:16-17 that the body of Christ represented by the Church is comprised of believers. So, in that regard, the temple of God is the Church. But, as individual believers, each one of us houses the Holy Spirit within us, so we are individually also temples.
46. What does Paul teach in Eph. 2:20-22?
In the Old Testament, people had to continuously offer blood sacrifices to God in order to maintain any kind of relationship with Him. When Christ died on the cross for our sins, that was the last blood sacrifice that would ever be
needed in order to keep us in a relationship with God. But that doesn’t mean that there is nothing for us to do. We couldn’t make salvation happen for us. That is a sovereign act of a holy God. But we do play a role once we are saved according to Romans 12:1.
47. What is that role?
For us as believers, our dedication to God is not a one-time thing. It is all about living a life in which we consistently choose to live in a way that honors the Lord. 2 Cor. 7 continues on with Paul’s advice on pure living.
48. Read 2 Cor. 6:16-18 and 7:1-4. How does Paul say we are to accomplish keeping our temple pure?
In 2 Cor. 6:16-18, Paul is quoting a few Old Testament verses in this section; Exodus 29:44-45, Isaiah 52:1, and Ezekiel 37:27. The thing that really jumps off the page for me is “Come out from their midst and be separate.” This verse is echoed in Rev. 18:4. Rev. 18:1-3 will give you the context for this.
49. What is it?
During the last part of the tribulation period, Babylon will arise as the seat of the Antichrist and it will be a religious, political, and economic system. There will be those who accept Christ during this period of time and many will be living either in Babylon or will be directly influenced by it.
50. Can we and should we completely separate ourselves from unbelievers? Why or why not?
Here is what we are separating ourselves from in Chapters 6-7:
1. Participation in sin.
2. Believers who are involved in sin.
3. Entangling relationships with unbelievers (“yoke”)
Twice in chapter 7, v. 4 and v. 16, Paul expresses that he has confidence in them. As a mental health counselor, I can attest to the fact that we will find that people are more apt to try to do the right thing if we tell them that we know they can.
CONFIDENCE>>>>>>>LEADS TO>>>>>>>>MORE CONFIDENCE
This is true, no matter the topic. If I am seeing a child who has social anxiety issues and I express my confidence that he/she will be able to talk to 1 other child the next day at school, then the child is going to want to try. And every time they are successful, their confidence grows and so will their friend group. When my kids were growing up, I would often express my confidence in them to do certain things and at times, they’d get mad at me and say, “Mom, you know I can’t do that!” to which I would always say, “You don’t know until you try.” Paul wanted them to try to be godly and to desire to be godly.
When all we do is scold, it fosters a sense of shame and discouragement. Paul knew this. He had a very difficult quick trip to them and had sent a severe letter to them and now, he wanted to put the motivation back in their hearts to do the godly thing. He was very wise. But, as we read through chapter 7, we cannot help but notice that he was anxious to receive news from Titus about how they had responded to the severe letter.
51. In 2 Cor. 7:5-16, how did the Corinthian church respond to this letter?
When you have to correct another believer, does it cause you sorrow to know that they will be sorrowful in reading it? If it doesn’t, then correcting them might not be the right thing at the right time. Our hearts have to be in the right place. Paul loved them so much, that he knew they would be heartbroken in reading this letter. That alone, caused him to suffer greatly. There’s an equation here in v. 10:
Sorrow about personal sin>>>>> Repentance >>>>>> SALVATION
Lack of sorrow of personal sin >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> DEATH
52. What are some things you notice about Titus in chapter 7?
Titus was an encourager. He was an encouragement to Paul and he was an encouragement to the Corinthians. The Greek word for encouragement is paraklesis which means “a call to one’s side.” The word paraclete is often the word that is used for the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. Paul had another friend who was known for his encouragement.
53. Read Acts 4:36. Who was this friend?
I love what one commentary said of distinguishing between the gift of teaching and the gift of encouragement, “Teaching says, ‘This is the way you should go’; encouragement says, ‘I will help you go that way.’”
In closing this week, we are challenged to find a balance in our lives. To completely separate ourselves from unbelievers would mean that we have no influence from which to share the gospel. To be immersed with them as they sin might cause us to stumble and fall. My final question to you this week is, are you influencing the world around you or is the world influencing you? Make every moment that you have left on this earth count because the moments we have are diminishing with every second we live. Be an encouragement to those around you for the glory of God and for the kingdom of God!
Blessings.
© Cindy D. Ketron. All Rights Reserved
