Message: In 2 Corinthians 6 Paul was telling the church not to receive
God’s grace in vain. The footnotes in my bible clarify this to mean falling
away from a profession of faith that was apparent, but not genuine. I feel like
I have been in seasons like this where I was walking through the motions of
being a Christian, but I was not pursuing, growing or changing. In the next few
verses he gave a list of character traits that proved he had been open, genuine
and true to them with no hidden agenda. He urged them to trust him like a
father and to see that they were not limited by him, but that they were limited
by their own affections (their own desires and ideas). He seemed to use this as an example of why
this was so important because he told them next to have no partnership with unbelievers.
Most of us associate this verse with unbelieving friends (or maybe even family)
but I was surprised when I noticed the notes in my bible described these
particular unbelievers as false prophets. The false prophets were pulling their
affections from Paul and ultimately from the truth of the gospel. They were
lying to them about Paul and even though their lives did not show the same
character that Paul described, somehow they were allowing them to lead them.
Command: Don’t be led or influenced by voices that are not God.
Promise: If we tune in to God’s voice he will lead us into truth.
Warning: If we tune into the wrong voices we will led by our desires,
ideas and motives and not the will of God.
Application: As I read this I thought of all the things I had been
pondering this week. Our country is in crisis and there is a great divide
between people because most are listening to voices that should not be leading
us as believers. Many people are fighting political battles being led by
entities that are not for our unity, not for our good and have nothing to do with
salvation. They take elements of truth and distort reality. Yet, somehow
everyone believes they are on the side of truth because these influences know
how to manipulate our emotions, beliefs and intellect to believe we are smarter
or more intuitive than the average person. We fight with our pride, but act
like puppets for an agenda that is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, more
than ever we need to abandon our political alignments and tune in hard to the
voice of God. We need to stop trying to align God with our political views and
social agendas and ask him to sincerely and honestly guide us into truth. I
believe if we are sincere in laying down our ideas and ask God to show us
truth, he will. And it probably won’t look the way we think it will.
