Spend And Be Spent 3
July 24, 2024
It’s good to ponder carefully a verse in Scripture. All of it is inspired, useful, and deserves our close investigation. II Corinthians 12: 15 refers to spending and being spent. What’s the difference? Being spent means giving myself, as does a missionary. Someone else may send that person. But that person is going, giving himself. Spending means giving up what is mine, everything I have. Scripture says do it gladly, with joy. How can we do that? Times of fatigue, seeming failure. The speaker was the Apostle Paul. How could he do it gladly?
He knew he was God’s creation, trained for the task, even his Jewish education as well as his conversion experience. Not his, all God’s even while he was in prison, to be given back with joy.