No Better Day than Today
2
Corinthians 6:3 is going to be my favorite verse for today: “Now is the
favorable time. Now is the day of
salvation.” It’s like the Christian
version of Carpe Diem (Seize the Day).
I
understand that with Christianity comes the whole “humble thyself before God”
obstacle. Yes, that does prevent a good
number of people from taking God seriously.
Many people don’t genuinely want to live life according to someone
else’s rules. Anyone who has ever been a teenager can attest to that, right?
But aside
from this whole “humble thyself to God” thing, this is the day to be in
faith! God has done all the work. He created the world. He paid the price for salvation. He sends His
Spirit to live with us. It’s not going
to ever get to be a more favorable time to be with God this side of the
resurrection into eternal life! So long
as one can agree that human beings don’t have the ability to save themselves,
why not believe in God and why not do it right here and right now? So long as we can agree that humanity and
society do not have the ability to proclaim absolute truth, why not take God up
on His offer right now?
Now is the
favorable time.
Embracing Godliness
Then Paul
moves along to talk about the tools of the favorable time. What does it really mean to embrace
salvation? What does it really mean to
embrace God’s ways?
- Great endurance,
- Afflictions,
- Hardships,
- Calamities,
- Beatings,
- Imprisonments,
- Riots,
- Labors,
- Sleepless nights,
- Hunger
- Purity,
- Knowledge,
- Patience,
- Kindness,
- the Holy Spirit,
- Genuine love,
- Truthful speech,
- Power of God;
- Weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left
- Honor,
- Dishonor,
- Slander,
- Praise,
- Treated as impostors, and yet are true,
- Treated as unknown, and yet well known,
- Treated as dying, yet living still.
- Treated as punished, and yet not killed,
- Treated as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing,
- Treated as poor, yet making many rich,
- Treated as having nothing, yet possessing everything.
This is an
incredible list. But notice that not
everything on the list is positive.
Notice that not everything on the list is good. Notice that a bunch of things on the list is
hard to accomplish and hard to bear. To
be a Christian means to know God and know God values and honors your walk with
Him. To be a Christian also means to
know that the world in general does not know God. To be a Christian means to seek the pleasure
and approval of God and to put up with the rest of the world’s reaction. To be a Christian means to toil hard for
something we cannot always see.
Last night
I got the privilege of listening to Pam Tebow (Tim Tebow’s mom) speak
locally. In fact, I was given the high
honor of praying for her, her ministry, and the gathered audience when she was
done speaking. She came to support the
local Pregnancy Care Center, but what I was really impressed with was that she
talked all about God – far much more than she talked about supporting the
center. She reminded all of us of the
value of storing up our treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not
destroy. She reminded us about the value
of living our life so that other people will be encouraged to be in a
relationship with God. I find her to
have much in common with Paul’s words here.
There are many hardships to be endured in life, but every single one
will be worth it when we stand before God and know that His effort through us
was not in vain.
Believers and Unbelievers
The last
section that Paul teaches in this chapter needs to be spoken of very
plainly. Paul speaks of “not being yoked
with unbelievers.” Now, many people read
that text and they immediately think of it as marriage advice. It is great marriage advice. But Paul isn’t talking about marriage
here. If Paul were talking about
marriage, he would say marriage. Paul was
a great speaker and he was a master over words.
Trust me, he knew the word for marriage and this is not the word that he
is using here.
Actually,
what Paul is saying here is a business term.
He is literally saying, “Do not become matched associates with
non-believers.” One might say that Paul
is discouraging us from being business partners with non-believers.
That is
really harsh advice to hear. How many
people in America can honestly say that they work for a true disciple of Jesus
Christ? How many of us can say that they
are in a job that advocates Christian thinking? If we take it out of the realm
of work and put it even into the realm of our hobbies – how many of us
participate in hobbies with people that are not truly disciples of Jesus
Christ? Let’s even think about our
churches. How many of us worship with
people who by all outward appearances may not be true disciples of Jesus
Christ? {Not that any of us can truly judge the heart of another person, of
course.} If we take Paul’s advice
here seriously, many of us are going to have to do some hard thinking.
At the
same time, though, let’s consider what life is like under our current
situation. How many of us have to bury
our faith at the job site? How many of
us have to compromise our genuine Christian ethic because the business world
demands us to be cutthroat and self-centered?
How many of us have to be so overly competitive at work that we cannot
genuinely display the fruit of the Holy Spirit (which can be found in Galatians
5:22). As we go about our hobbies, how
many of us have to be careful about what we say – from a religious perspective
– to other people lest others look at us like we are freaks? Even at church, how many of us cannot say
what needs to be said because true belief in Christ is “too hard” for some
people to accept and they might end up leaving?
Now we
hear why Paul gives us this advice. He
isn’t saying that it is sinful to be “yoked to non-believers.” Neither is he saying we shouldn’t be friends
with them in an attempt to win them into the faith. What he is saying is that if we put ourselves
in a position where our life (or a portion therein) is controlled by a
non-believer, then our faith and our ability to talk about our faith will be
compromised. It is a simple
reality. It is an unfortunate reality. If we enter into that reality, we experience
conflict among the “masters that we serve.”
If we work
with non-believers, there will be tension within us between how we wish we
could act and how we are forced to act at work.
If we associate with non-believers in our hobbies and our free-time
pursuits, there will be tension within us.
If we go to a church where the true declaration of faith has to be
compromised, there will be tension within us.
It isn’t sinful to be among non-believers – that’s what evangelism is
all about! But it will bring about
tension. It will bring about tension
because the right reason to hang around non-believers is to evangelize them and
bring Christ into their life. When we
hang around non-believers and cannot do that, our Christian nature – the very
Holy Spirit within us – is suppressed by default.
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