I am in India. This is my eighth month on the race and the people I’ve met here are one of a kind. India has a beautiful culture, delicious food, and intelligent people. I have encountered something different here. We have been living in one of the rural regions in Andra-Pradesh. Many people work in the agricultural industry. Daily, we pass by men and women whose bodies look tired and worn out from working the rice fields for decades.
Recently, I met a woman that was 100 years old. She couldn’t move fast, but she could still get around. She had a walker, but chose to get around by using her hands and feet. Every visible part of her body had wrinkles. Her body was spent. The hundred or so years she’s lived on this earth were most likely invested in child rearing, cleaning, cooking, and farming. Her body is spent.
“I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls.”
2 Corinthians 12:15a
As I meet people in India with wrinkly faces and hands, I wonder how their lives have been spent. Have their lives been spent in pursuit of their own desires? Have their lives been spent pursuing the desires of God? How has my life been spent? How is my life currently being spent? Does the way I spend my time, energy, and money reflect the heart desiring the expansion of the kingdom of God?
The aforementioned verse is Paul talking to the church in Corinth. In 2 Corinthians, Paul covers many issues happening within the church. In chapter 12, Paul is talking about his concern for the Corinthians. He wants for the purity among the peoples’ pursuit of God to be restored. During this time, false apostles had arrived and were opposing the Gospel and the work of Paul.
As believers, this should be our desire for the world. Our job description is to know God, love God, and make Him known. This is how we should spend our lives. The most important reminder in this verse is the word “gladly”. We are GLADLY supposed to spend our lives, at all costs, for lost souls. We work, but we have joy while we work.
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
Romans 12:1
Presenting our bodies as living sacrifices is a way of “spending” our lives and is a form of spiritual worship. When we spend our body, heart, and mind, we are worshipping God. We spend our time doing what we love. If we love the lost, we will spend our times for these people (evangelism, prayer, relationship-building, etc.).
Oh that we would GLADLY WORSHIP GOD spending every aspect of our lives for the sake of souls!
