{2 Corinthians 13}
By Lisa Thayer
Last
week I had the privilege of attending a 2-day retreat for high school
seniors. I was a small group facilitator
– I made sure these kids stayed together and participated in the events. The speaker was amazing. His life story was uplifting and encouraging
and his message really pointed to unity.
To be unified with Christ.
Here
in this final chapter to the Corinthians, Paul knew he was dealing with
on-going problems in the Church. These
seniors at this retreat, were a tough group to engage, and Paul – the speaker,
could have given up and refused to communicate with them, but he continued to
speak the truth to these kids. He never
gave up. He never stopped loving this
group of dead-eyed, high school seniors.
He never stopped encouraging them and building them up.
As
believers, we have to reach out to people who are sinning, but we have to do it
in such a way that truly is with the love of Christ. We don’t want to break relationships – but build
them up. We want to heal people. We can blast people away with laws and rules,
or we could turn from these people because we don’t want to face their
situation. We can isolate them by
gossiping about their problem and turn others against them. Or like both Paul’s, we can seek to build relationships
by taking a better approach – sharing, communicating and caring.
“For we
cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.” 2 Corinthians 13:8
I
am reminded that there were different churches back in the days of the early
church – the Corinthian church, the Galatian church, the church at Ephesus and
the church in Rome, just to name a few. We
can get wrapped up in which church is better, whether Catholic, Methodist,
Baptist, Christian Reformed, etc., and push people away because of the rules
established in each of these named faiths by being insistent on following the rules. We can lose our focus of the One truth – that
Christ is our Savior. That failing to
believe in Him is the greatest sin. We
owe our entire lives to Him. Each one of
the original churches had people, not the entire church body, sinning. BUT, each one also had believers. Each one had people totally focused on the
love of God and were willing to share that message with others. I cannot help but look at how the apostle
Paul went to Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Rome, Jerusalem, Thessalonica, Colossae,
Antioch and others – these were all different people groups, yet Paul’s message was the same. He risked his life to share it with so many
people. Are you? Are you willing to help people from another background,
a different faith, to share your love of Christ?
