DEVOTION: "And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved."(2 Corinthians 12:15)

    "And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved."(2 Corinthians 12:15)

"The less I be Loved"   How many sermons have been preached about Love? How many songs have been sung about Love? How many people have spent their lives searching for love and acceptance but yet it remains out of their grasp!  In this verse the Apostle Paul exposes his true feelings about a certain group of people that he was ministering to but had become painfully aware that they would never truly love him. I know that's painful but it is true, how long have you been trying to get a certain person or group of people to let you into their click? Just let it go, move on, it's not happening because if they wanted you in, they would open the door. The more the Apostle Paul loved some of the people at Corinth, the less they loved him. They were a fickle, carnal, emotional group of people that loved religious drama and Paul's writings to them were/are corrective in nature. You should just be who God created you to be and God will place the people in your life that are needed for your dreams and visions to come to pass. In order for this to happen, you will have to junk your ideology of "who's who", its just an allusion. You are who you think you are, if you have a spiritually renewed mind!!    "And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;"(Ephesians 4:3). Many centuries ago Solomon shed some very relevant  light on this subject of "who we are", "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he;"(Proverbs 23:7a)  You don't need the approval of people that you have wasted way to much time trying to get their approval on your life and they still won't give you the time of day. I know you are asking yourself, aren't we to love all men, the answer is a resounding YES, but you must accept the, painful truth, that they may never love you. Moses died in the wilderness with a group of people that God told him would never change, so you can die with the dead or move on with the living. They never grew in the grace and knowledge of God but they certainly held Moses back from the Promised Land.  It's your choice, a wise person once said,"If you want to go with me, you will have to grow with me"!   For the love of God to function to its fullest in your life, the people you love must also love you.

Scott L. Boatner