I read this line today during my time with the Lord and was considering what motivates a person to give their all for a particular thing? Human beings are predictable; generally, one gives something in return for something of a perceived equal or greater value. I know when I become consumed by something, there is usually some financial or emotional payout. So why in 2 Corinthians 12:15 did Paul “gladly spend and be utterly spent on behalf of your souls”? What could have possibly motivated him? To spend means to give your material possessions and to be spent means to give your being. So really everything Paul had and was, his life, and soul – he gladly spent for the believers. He did not even have the motive of wanting to be loved back. So many times we bemoan our service to the Lord, we require things in return, or we have impure motives in our Christian life. With Paul we see a different, perhaps not even humanly possible attitude. Actually, what we see is Christ lived out in the uplifted humanity of a man. Let’s be honest, we cannot give our money, possessions, life, soul, and being in way that is free from motive. This is something that can only occur if Paul’s words, “For to me, to live is Christ”, is our reality. Do we realize that as Christians, we have a living Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, inside us? In order for this living Person to live, we must die. We must be continually yielding to the Lord with our time, our finances, and our soulish needs. We should open our being in prayer to the Lord, “Lord, when was the last time I yielded to You?”. Only by yielding, can His life take over. Our being spent for the Lords’ spread and increase must be an issue of living Him.
When you spend all that you have, you find yourself in a desperate position. This is a good place to be. There is no longer self supply. Your well of human resource has run dry. Psalm 39, “Lord, make me to know mine end”, is now your reality. So you must rely on the Lord for everything and this is uncomfortable, unchartered territory for the creatures of comfort that we are. Your other choice is to let your natural man thrive, become very self-centred and self-sufficient and… very useless to the Lord. God has entered into humanity for His enlargement, and He can no longer move apart from man. The Lord’s move today is with us who love Him! May we live Christ.
