There are many good reasons why we need to be careful about making friends, partners, spouses with people in the world. The Bible encourages us to come out and be separate from unbelievers. Instead of being in league with people living to fulfill the desires of the flesh and worldly mind, believers are to expose the unfruitful works of darkness. That doesn’t mean that we feel superior to any other human. The Bible tells us that there are none who are righteous and all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 3:10, 23). Every person on this earth needs to depend upon the grace of God and the blood of Jesus for forgiveness of our sins.
However, there must be a marked difference between Jesus disciples and those who are not. It has to do with the change of heart and mind that Paul speaks about in Romans…
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect”
Romans 12:1,2
The Lord promises to be our Father when we come out of darkness into His marvelous light (2 Cor 6:14-7:1; 1 PE 2:9). He will lavish His love on us as we put on the graces found in (1 John 3:1; 2 Peter 1:1-7).
Our business partners who live by worldly standards will not treat people better than themselves, rather they will excise as much money and effort as possible from every person. They might cheat, steal, lie about their taxes, mistreat employees and many other things because that is what the world does.
Our worldly friends will try to influence us to go places and do things that are against God’s will. Many believe they can only have fun if there is alcohol, loose sexuality or other sinful activities involved. Given time, our friends can wear us down and we might follow their worldly example.
A spouse who is not a Christian can really present struggles to doing right in God’s sight. Their ideas of what to do with money, how to control the size of their family, how to treat aging parents, where you go each Lord’s day and what you do for recreation are far different from the Christian. Marriage is hard enough without adding to it the stresses of someone trying to pull you away from God’s way.
Let us be careful to make the best choices by selecting faithful Christian business partners, godly, devout friends who encourage us to live soberly and righteously, and spouses that want to help us go to heaven above all other goals for their marriage.
Worship Thoughts 