Deliberate Love That Plays For Keeps
So I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well. If I love you more, will you love me less?
2 Corinthians 12:15
Paul didn’t know when to quit loving people. They might stop loving him, but he would never stop loving them.
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The Corinthians found this out. Paul loved them enough to reprimand them and set them straight. And when they protested by criticizing him, he didn’t turn away. After all, they didn’t ask him to love them; God did!
God’s love is like that—seeking even those who spurn it, as Oswald Chambers describes.
WALK WITH OSWALD CHAMBERS
“When the Spirit of God has shed abroad the love of God in our hearts, we begin deliberately to identify ourselves with Jesus Christ’s interests in other people—and Jesus Christ is interested in every kind of person there is.
“We have no right in Christian work to be guided by our affinities; this is one of the biggest tests in your relationship to Jesus Christ.
“The delight of sacrifice is that I lay down my life for my Friend—not fling it away, but deliberately lay my life out for him and his interests in other people, not for a cause.
“Paul spent himself for one purpose only—that he might win people to Jesus Christ.
“Paul attracted others to Jesus all the time, never to himself. ‘I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible’ (1 Corinthians 9:19).”
WALK CLOSER TO GOD
You may not like the people you are called to love. But you have someone to fall back on when you find it difficult to respond with smiles and warm feelings.
Paul was willing to spend everything he had for the Corinthians, though his love was seldom returned.
After reading his two inspired letters this month, do you think it was a wise investment?
Who are you investing your life in—a day at a time?
