2 Corinthians 12:14-19

2 Corinthians 12:14-19  Now I am ready to visit you for the third time, and I will not be a burden to you, because what I want is not your possessions but you.  After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.  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?  Be that as it may, I have not been a burden to you.  Yet, crafty fellow that I am, I caught you by trickery!  Did I exploit you through any of the men I sent you?  I urged Titus to go to you and I sent our brother with him.  Titus did not exploit you, did he?  Did we not act in the same spirit and follow the same course?  Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you?  We have been speaking in the sight of God as those in Christ; and everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening. 

This can be a difficult scripture for believers, for within it is a good description of love, God's love.  After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.  So I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well.  Of course this is not about money it is about a total commitment of self to the people we are supposed to love.  I once met with a Christian man who was having severe family problems during several weeks of a men's Bible study.  In those sessions, we talked about a Christian's commitment to love his wife and children.  Towards the end of our meetings, I noticed he became very edgy and noncommittal.  Finally, he said, "Cliff, when do I have time for myself?  When do I fulfill my desires?  When do I live my life?  He walked away from those Bible studies fully intending to LIVE HIS OWN LIFE, to place his life before his wife and children.  When he came to me, he wanted help for his life; his relationships were all messed up.  However, he wanted everyone to change but him.  He left me on the last day of Bible study sad, for he did not want to give his whole life to God.  He was like the rich young man who sadly left Jesus because he was not willing to give up his life (his possessions) and follow Jesus completely.  The family of this man that I counseled did end up in a train wreck.  He stubbornly chose his life, his will, his needs, but his family reaped chaos and sorrow.  

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.  And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.  (1 John 3:16)  God's love is a covenant love, a grace love, something similar to having a child born in your home.  You love that child regardless of his temperament, abilities, or potential.  You love the child because he or she is yours, simply because the child exists.  Immediately, you establish in your heart a covenant with your child: "I will love you regardless, for you are mine."  From that time on you don't abandon the child.  You give your child all you have: all your strength, all your ability, all your will, all your possessions to make that child the best he or she can be.  Your love is a covenant, established in love forever.  

Jesus laid down his life, all that He had, for us.  We ought to love in the same way.  This is often difficult for Americans, for we have been taught not to love others as we love ourselves.  We have been taught me first, and sadly to say sometimes me only.  However, if we have anything left over, we will love others too.  We find that self-centered, seductive philosophy propagated through advertisements, through celebrity worship,  through extolling "party time," and so one.  We are sold the message TO BE ALL THAT WE CAN BE in life.  We are to get the most out of life FOR OURSELVES.  Love, enduring commitment, is not in vogue.  But fleshly ATTRACTION, lust misnomered as love, is in vogue.  In America, sin dances on center stage.  Materialism, sexual salaciousness, self-gratification take up even the thoughts of Christians as we buy into the great American Dream.  As Eve, we hear Satan say, “Did God really say. . ."  (Genesis 3:1)  "Did God really say that you can't have it all, that you can't live as you please, that you can't partake of everything you see in the Garden?  Did God really say that you should live as He directed?"  And as Christians, did Jesus really say that you must emulate him, that you must show this world his life, his love, his will?  

Paul says in the above scriptures, Children should not save up for their parents; parents save up for the children.  Children are to be cared for by their parents; God's children in the world are to be cared for by the church.  Paul said as a spiritual father to the Corinthians, I will spend all that I have for them, and I will dedicate my whole life to them.  Even as Jesus Christ dedicated his life to me to the point of death, I will do likewise to those I am supposed to love.  This directive is very difficult for many American Christians, for we have been taught a lie by Satan himself.  We have been taught to live for ourselves, to be all that we can be, regardless of the cost to others.  This is not the way of the cross.  We must repent and live for Christ.  We must love because He first loved us.