Today we are going to shake things up a bit. 

At Hope, we most commonly use the New Living Translation (NLT) of the Bible. I encourage you to read today’s passages in NLT at the link above. Make note of what stands out to you. Then I invite you to read a segment (2 Corinthians 6:11-18, 7:1) of the same passages in The Message translation below. As you are reading, be mindful of words or phrases that stand out to you differently from the NLT version. 

Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. 

Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!

Don’t become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That’s not partnership; that’s war. Is light best friends with dark? Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands? Who would think of setting up pagan idols in God’s holy Temple? But that is exactly what we are, each of us a temple in whom God lives. 

God himself put it this way:

“I’ll live in them, move into them;
I’ll be their God and they’ll be my people.
So leave the corruption and compromise;
leave it for good,” says God.
“Don’t link up with those who will pollute you.
I want you all for myself.
I’ll be a Father to you;
you’ll be sons and daughters to me.”
The Word of the Master, God.

With promises like this to pull us on, dear friends, let’s make a clean break with everything that defiles or distracts us, both within and without. Let’s make our entire lives fit and holy temples for the worship of God.

Reflection:

  • What stands out to you in The Message passages above? 
  • What might it mean to have a “wide-open, spacious life”? 
  • What do you think Paul means by “Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way”? How is that relevant today?

Prayer:

Lord, thank you for your faithfulness. I invite your Spirit to fill, renew, and strengthen me today. I ask for the guidance of Holy Spirit to walk in faithfulness through the tensions we face as believers. Show me how to live a “wide-open, spacious life” and direct my days so I may be a faithful witness for you. Amen.