Day 35: I trust You, Lord. Separated. 1 Corinthians 5
Have you read 1 Corinthians 5 yet? No? Stop and go read it. This can wait.
Ok. You've read it now. What are your thoughts? This chapter is jammed packed with brow raising guidance. You can almost hear Paul's disgust as he wrote it.
It seems the church at Corinth was not to tolerate sin in their congregation. Yet they were ok with a son sleeping with his father's wife (would this be his mother?!)! “Put him out of the fellowship,” Paul said. “Don't stand for it. He will ruin the entire fellowship.”
A little yeast leavens the whole batch. Don't believe this? Here's a lovely little experiment for you. Go to your kitchen. You are going to make dumpling. Take some flour, a dash of salt, yeast and some lukewarm water. Don't mix it all yet. Take the flour and the salt and mix it well. Now put in a very small 'shake of the pack' amount of the yeast. Wait! That's too much. Just use a very small amount. There you go. Ever so gently shake in a tiny bit. Mix this. Now add your water. Let sit.
Did it rise eventually? No? Ok. No problem. Go ahead and cook your soup. Fish soup is awesome, by the way. Roll out your dough while that's cooking. You don't want to drop the dumpling in too early. Cut the dough into small squares. Now drop them into your soup. Did they puff up? I'm sure they did. The thing about dumpling is they should be flat not puffy like a pastry.
If you don't have yeast, get you some self-rising flour and follow the basic recipe without the yeast. The baking soda in the flour will have the same affect. Your dough will puff up.
This is what Paul was saying. You leave that sin-filled person among you and he will bleed out on everyone else. One bad apple does spoil the whole bunch.
I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. 1 Corinthians 5:9-11 KJV
Man! When you read this, do you visualize the distaste Jesus had when he turned over the tables of the people selling in the temple (Matthew 21:12). The Bible makes it seem like it was a docile type of act but when you realize how he felt, you understand He went in the template and straight regulated on the people (do people still use regulate like that?). In other words, it was not a Kum ba ya moment like people pretend it was. Jesus was flabbergasted.
That's how you can picture Paul as he writes this. You know how you feel when you just washed dishes and turned away for a few minutes and the sink is filled. Or you just cleaned up a pile of toys and they are all back on the floor. Or how about you just dropped your son/daughter off to college and they are home already raiding the fridge? It's that feeling of "Didn't I just...". Paul left these people and now is being told that this type of act happened and the people have allowed it to go on without separating them self from the person(s) committing the act(s).
You ever wonder why people can't separate themselves from people who mean them no good? What is the hold the 'no good doer' has on the person. But the word of God says to not even eat with those type of people. Have nothing to do with them. You have nothing in common. They are dead in their sin. Rotten and stinky. You are alive in Christ. Why are you holding onto them?
That's what Paul is saying in this chapter. Separate yourself from those who don't follow the word. If you don't, you will end up like them: living in sin. They will rub off on you. No one is saying not to pray for them, minister to them, or anything like that. But as a believer not living in sin, your best friend shouldn't be a nonbeliever living in sin.
Who are you holding on to? Where could you have been if you'd just let them go? You don't trust God enough to send you divine friends and associates? It may hurt a little, but let them go.
It's time to clean house.
Sweeping it out,
Keiyia JOYet George
Trust Walk: Walking in His Steps coming soon!