Do not try to work together as equals with unbelievers, for it cannot be done - do not make mismated alliances with them, or come under a different yoke with them (inconsistent with your faith). For what partnership have right living and right standing with God with iniquity and lawlessness?
   Or how can light fellowship with darkness? How can Christ and the devil agree? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? How can God's temple come to terms with pagan idols? For we are the temple of the living God! As God Himself has said, "I will dwell in and with and among them and will walk in and with and among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. So, come out from among [them] . . . then I will receive you kindly and treat you with favor, and I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters," says the Lord Almighty.
   With these promises ringing in our hearts, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from anything that pollutes body or soul. Let us prove our reverence for God by consecrating ourselves to Him completely. It is because of this solemn fear of the Lord, which is ever present in our minds, that we work so hard to win others. God knows our hearts, that they are pure in this matter, and I hope that, deep within, you really know it too.
   Since we believe that Christ died for all of us, we should also believe that we have died to the old life we used to live. He died for all so that all who live - having received eternal life from Him - might live no longer for themselves, to please themselves, but to spend their lives pleasing Christ Who died and rose again for them.
   When a man's ways are pleasing to the Lord, He makes even his enemies live at peace with him. We receive from Him whatever we ask, because we obey His commands and do what pleases Him. This is what He commands: that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as Christ commanded us. Whoever obeys God's commands lives in God and God lives in Him. And this is how we know that God lives in us: we know it because of the Spirit He has given us.

Taken from II Cor. 6, 7, 5, Pr. 16, I Jn. 3, The Amplified Bible, The Phillips Translation,
The Living Bible and The New International Version. For free Lifescope book,
write to Box 1575, Carlsbad, NM 88221. Please send $1.00 for postage and handling.