Just "Getting Along" is Not an Option

Perhaps you've heard the old question, "Can't we all just get along?"  Sounds good doesn't it?  However the truth of the matter is that "we" followers of Christ and "they" followers of self and sin will never and were never intended to "get along".  In 2 Corinthians 6:14 Paul warns the Corinthian church members against being "unequally yoked".  I like the translation of the Holman Christian Standard Bible; "Do not be mismatched with unbelivers.  For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness" This was written by a man (Paul) who spent a lot of his time with unbelievers.  He gave his reason for this in the first letter he wrote to the church at Corinth in 1 Cor. 9:19-23.  I'll only put verse 23 in this post.  "Now I do all this because of the gospel, so I may become a partner in its benefits."  

We will never be completely isolated from non-believers, nor should we be.  However, our motive must not be to "get along" in the sense that "you have your belief and I have mine."  We have a mandate to share the good news of Jesus Christ with them and seek to win them.  Unless we are convinced that Jesus is THE exclusive way to heaven and that it not God's will that ANY should perish, but that ALL come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9) we may find ourselves pulling away from the unsaved so that we don't offend them or be tarnished by them.  Jesus did not say, "I have come to get along with everyone."  He did say "For the Son of Man has come to seek and save the lost." (Lk. 19:10)
Our job has been described as commandos who have been dropped behind enemy lines and are working our way back to home base, bringing as many captives as possible.  We are NOT commissioned to become "best buds" with the lost, but we are commissioned to make disciples of them.

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