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.

 Reciprocating means to move forward and then back in a straight line. Paul’s implication here is that the love that he has shared is not returned. That in a worldly sense seems negative and contrary to the purpose of love, that it is a thing shared between two people to the mutual benefit of both. If you look at love as anything except Agape love, this would be true.

V16 But be it so, I did not burden you: nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile.

Here once again, Paul speaks to the only nature of love the Corinthians had known up until this time. The issue here once again is not that the Agape Love acts as the world knows it but that by being poured out, it acted in the manner of its own true nature, to be poured out itself afresh on someone new.

Agape Love is not a reciprocating force, it does not return to its originator by moving backward. Agape Love is ever being poured out to a place it has never been before. Paul in referring to being caught with guile is speaking to the positive results that rather than wasting Agape Love on the one who showed it, turned and passed it on to those who had not yet received it.

How can you love God? How can you love Jesus Christ?

Matthew 25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Agape Love is always moving forward, never looking back.

Proverbs 17:27, 18:14, 20:27 He that hath knowledge spareth his words: and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit. The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear? The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly.

We left off yesterday without determining the issues of the contrite spirit. Once again, let us call upon help from the Holy Spirit to illuminate our minds.

The spirit of man is not the spirit of God. Much confusion exists in the use of spirit in our vernacular. A biblical understand of the spirit of man can be found beside the spirit of God. It is as if they are inseparable, but must be defined in nature as to which is the divine nature and not.

In man: as that which breathes quickly in animation or agitation, vivacity, vigour, courage, temper, anger, impatience, patience, disposition (as troubled, bitter, discontented), disposition (of various kinds), unaccountable or uncontrollable impulse.

Spirit of God, the third person of the triune God, the Holy Spirit, coequal, coeternal with the Father and the Son, as inspiring ecstatic state of prophecy, as impelling prophet to utter instruction or warning, imparting warlike energy and executive and administrative power, as endowing men with various gifts, as energy of life, as manifest in the Shekinah glory, and never referred to as a depersonalized force.

This depersonalized force points to the direct issue at hand. Man can and will act against his true nature. Man’s actions do not define him. God on the other hand cannot and will not act against His nature. God cannot give up one part of His personality in favor of another. God is consistent in execution of His true nature.

Contrition: the state of feeling remorseful and penitent. God never has to repent, man does.

In this the Holy Spirit gives way to the spirit of man, that the spirit of man maintains free will in exercise of confession and repentance. It must be this way because the conscience belongs to man and must by needs be cleansed and excised by man at the urging of the Holy Spirit, but not against our will.

And thereby saved.