II Corinthians Chapter 6
It is not to be taken for granted that God calls us to be vessels for His use. He wants to use us to spread the good news of the gospel. God does not need us to do this, but He wants us to partner with Him to spread the gospel. Considering all that Christ has done for us, we should gladly want to serve Him in whatever way He wants. Paul expresses the honor he feels to serve Jesus despite the hardships he endured. He views those hardships as simply steps in the journey of serving Jesus.
Let's Reflect
1. What are we not to take for granted or in vain that we received from God?
2. When is the favorable time to accept the Lord Jesus as your Savior?
3. Paul didn’t bring letters of commendation with him as to the worthiness of his ministry, he believed that his life and the things he endured for Christ’s sake were proof enough that the message he brought was truth. Think about it, who would volunteer to experience persecution, beatings, imprisonments, hunger and being shipwrecked just to bring a message to people? Paul knew that the message they brought was that important! Through all that he endured Paul still did what? See verse 10.
4. Did Paul keep anything of the truth from the Corinthians? Then why were they struggling so much as a church?
5. In the remaining verses of the chapter Paul points out one big problem that the Christians had, and quite frankly it is still a problem today. We have a difficult time separating ourselves from the world. What does verse 14 tell us we need to do?
6. Paul then sites several contradicting relationships to make his point. The last one should definitely bring us to conviction. If our bodies are the temple of the living God, then we should not have anything to do with what? Note: this does not mean that we should completely isolate ourselves from unbelievers, but we need to be careful who we partner with.
7. Paul then reminds us of what God said in the Old Testament. What is the command that God gave to His chosen people?
