I do not venture into these depths, but I would lay upon our hearts that the very inmost meaning of all that Jesus Christ has said, and is saying, to each of us by the records of His life, by the pathos of His death, by the miracle of His Resurrection, by the glory of His Ascension, by the power of His granted Spirit, is, ‘I seek you.’And, brethren, our self-surrender is the essence of our Christianity. So Paul had, over and over again, to meet the hateful charge of making money out of his apostleship. And as a parent lays up for his children, and takes not from them; so he desired, as their spiritual father, to enrich them with spiritual good things, and not to take from them any of their temporal riches.
He loved them, as all true friends love, for their own sake, not for anything he might hope to gain from them.
For I seek not yours, but you. So, then, first of all, I remark, Christ desires personal surrender.III. For because he is their spiritual parent, it is they who should be looking to him, not he to them. Should they not entreat him to give unto their minister “a mouth and wisdom which none shall be able to gainsay or resist;” and to direct him “how to speak a word in season to their weary souls?” In short, should they not be as solicitous to receive, as their minister can be to communicate, good; and should not every other consideration be regarded as a matter of comparative indifference? But Paul is more probably thinking of many ways whereby he can benefit the Corinthians, making provision for them spiritually in every way.We could easily concede to Alford and others, who maintain a second visit, did the words justify it. It seems to me that, among the many wants of this generation of professing Christians, there is none that is more needed than that a wave of new consecration should pass over the Church. But in so far as human love is pure in its desire to possess another, we have the right to believe the deep and wonderful thought that there is something corresponding to it in the heart of Christ, which is a revelation for us of the heart of God; and that, however little we may be able to construe the whole meaning of the fact, He does stretch out an arm of desire towards us; and for His own sake, as for ours, would fain draw us near to Himself, and is ‘satisfied,’ as He is not without it, when men’s hearts yield themselves up to Him, and let Him love them and lavish Himself upon them. Thus, in the context, he tells these Corinthian grumblers that he must beg their pardon for not having taken anything of them, and so honoured them. 2 Corinthians 12:14Men are usually quick to suspect others of the vices to which they themselves are prone. Depend upon it, the angry things that we hear to-day about the unequal distribution of wealth will get angrier and angrier, and will be largely justified in becoming so by the fact that so many of us, _Christians included_, have firmly grasped the notion of possession, and utterly forgotten the obligation of stewardship.Again, the law of self-surrender, in its application to all that we have, involves our continual reference to Jesus Christ in our disposition of these our possessions.
He could claim the rights of a father, as in Finding the new version too difficult to understand? The first is _stewardship_, not ownership; and that all round the circumference of our possessions. There is only one thing that will set them to work, and that is that they shall live nearer their Master, and find out more of what they owe to Him; and so render themselves up to be His instruments for any purpose for which He may choose to use them.This surrender of ourselves for direct Christian service is the only solution of the problem of how to win the world for Jesus Christ.