Our mouth has spoken freely to you, O Corinthians, our heart is opened wide.
We have talked openly to you, and have opened our hearts and lives to you.
You are not restrained by us, but you are restrained by your own affections.
We have not cramped you, hemmed you in, but you have hemmed in your own emotions of affection. You're holding back.
Now in a like exchange--I speak as to children--open wide to us also.
As I see you as my own children, open your hearts to us as we have to you.
Do not be bound together with unbelievers;
Do not make legal business or marriage partnerships with those who don't have the same world-view you have.
for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness,
Obeying the Law and rebelling against the Law cannot agree on anything.
or what fellowship has light with darkness?
Darkness cannot exist in the presence of light, light always overpowers darkness.
Or what harmony has Christ with Belial,
Belial is another name for Satan, the enemy of God. Christ is the anointed by God, and is God. There can be no friendship between God and this enemy of God.
or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?
Spiritually, the believer is alive, but the unbeliever is dead.
Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God;
When God's Holy Spirit lives in our spirits, that makes us God's dwelling place, His temple. So there can be no camaraderie between God and devils, demons that back idols.
just as God said,
I will dwell in them and walk among them; And I will be their God, and they shall be My people (Leviticus 26:12; Jeremiah 31:33; 32:38; Ezekiel 36:28; Zechariah 8:8).All these prophets prophesied that one day God would dwell among His people in a very intimate way, being their God, and they devoted to Him without varying.
Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate, says the Lord.We are commanded to separate ourselves from all that is filthy or contaminated or disgusting, not touching any filth at all. We may even need to leave the geographical area where the people are under the Lord's wrath.
And do not touch what is unclean; (Isaiah 52:11; Revelation 18:4).
And 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 (Jeremiah 31:9; Revelation 21:7).God wants us to be beautiful, not contaminated with any worldly or demonic uncleanness. Jesus' Blood washed us clean, pristine, as though we had never sinned at all, so we would be fit to be able to dwell with God in His very presence as His own family. We are not to go back into the cesspool of excrement again, the pigsty of filth. Or be that close to those who live there.
We are in the World, but we are not to be of the World. We can do business with those who are of the World, but we are not to join with them in their ungodly ways and lifestyles.
O my Father, You are pure, and You are beautiful, and You want us to be pure and beautiful like You as Your children. Please show us where the boundaries are, to know how to do business with the World without condoning or partaking in the corruption of the World. Let us not contaminate ourselves by "touching the unclean thing." Help us to live our lives separate from the World, showing the World how pure and holy You are.
Show us how to manifest Your Love to the World, in how we love You and one another. Your purity is totally uncontaminated by any contact with anything not clean. And Your beauty is Your perfectness in everything You are.
O Father, strengthen us and protect us from the contamination of the World. You know how easy it is for us to slide into compromise with what would spoil our witness for you to the World. Help us to keep ourselves unspotted by the World we live in, as Your royal children.
Open our minds to understand who we are in Your family, to live our lives here as Your children, learning how to be royal, in the humility and graciousness of our Father God. Thank You for working in us, and on us, and even through us, making us into the very image of Your dear Son, our Christ Jesus the Lord.
And every eye shall see, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is our Lord God Almighty, sovereign King of the Universe, to the glory of Almighty God the Father!
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
