Not What Is Yours, but You

Scripture

2 Corinthians 12:14–15 (ESV)

Reflection

I seek not what is yours but you is a sentence very few leaders could say honestly about the people they lead. Most working relationships are built the other way around, and everyone involved knows it.

Paul separates the person from what the person produces. He is not coming for their money, their output, or their usefulness to his mission. He wants them. The distinction is clean, and it is rare enough that he has to say it out loud.

The comparison he uses puts the direction of obligation where leaders often resist it. Children are not obligated to save up for their parents. Parents do that for children. The one carrying more responsibility spends on the one carrying less, not the reverse.

I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls is stewardship pushed all the way to its end. A leader is entrusted with people and expected to be spent on them, which is the opposite of the arrangement where people get spent on the leader's goals.

Then the honest question. If I love you more, am I to be loved less. Care given to people does not always come back in proportion, and a leader who needs it to will eventually start rationing the care. Paul asks the question plainly and keeps spending anyway.

Practical Application

• Ask whether you are after your people or after what they produce, and answer honestly.
• Spend something on one person this month with no expectation of return.
• Notice whether you ration care according to how well it has been reciprocated.

Takeaways

• A leader entrusted with people is expected to be spent on them, not the other way around.
• Care is not always returned in proportion, and leaders who need the return begin to ration it.

Closing Thought

He asked the question out loud and kept spending anyway.