Wasting a Good Bottle of Wine
unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 2 Timothy 3:3 NASB
Irreconcilable – What do you think about the translation “irreconcilable”? Does it makes you think of someone who clashes, who is antagonistic, who is incompatible with the community? Would you describe the irreconcilable person as one who cannot be appeased, is intolerant and inflexible, is bitter toward others? In English, all of these are related to the word, but in Greek we find something a bit different.
The Greek text is aspondos. It is the negative of spendo, a word that means, “to pour yourself out for a cause or for others.” It is a word about devotion. From Paul’s perspective, someone described as spendo is a person ready to sacrifice himself on behalf of the goal. We might think of “irreconcilable” as someone who will not enter into agreement (that is, someone who breaks a covenant), but Paul see aspondos as someone who refuses to enter into a covenant bond.
In the last days, men will see themselves as the center of their private universes. They will be unwilling to pour themselves out for others. They will consider what is in it for them before they make any commitments for the benefit of others. In the last days, men will fill their wine cellars with bottles that will never be opened. They will show their prized collections in order to impress others of their worth. But wine is useless in the bottle. It serves no purpose at all on the dusty shelf. These men would rather view their accumulation than share a bond over a glass of their finest. In the last days, the only ones who benefit from such people are the merchants who sell them the bottles. They have taken God’s goods and stripped them of their purpose.
You might not be a wine connoisseur. You might collect something else that makes you feel important. There is nothing particularly wrong with that, but it will soon become a sin if your accumulation serves only yourself. In Hebrew thought everything is designed with a purpose. Nothing exists without fulfilling its purpose. Fine wines were meant to be drunk in the company of others. They were meant to be shared, to build community, to bring people together. So it is with all you have. Aspondos are those whose lives are consumed with keeping what they have, and in the process they reject what God intended.
Why not make a list of those things (not people) you value most? See what you collect? Where you spend that little bit of extra money to put one more of them on the shelf? Now ask yourself, “Are my prized possessions serving the purpose God had in mind? Are they building community, adding to righteousness, drawing me closer to YHVH?”
Topical Index: aspondos, irreconcilable, treaty, purpose, 2 Timothy 3:3
“A bell is not a bell ’til you ring it – A song is not a song until you sing it – Love in your heart wasn’t put there to stay – Love is not love ’til you give it away!” OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II
“Lovers of self” is an oxymoron. There is no such thing. The very definition of the stuff is “that which happens BETWEEN two”. If you are a love troll, always looking for that which can be collected into your bank account of need, then you will always be a bottomless pit, a black hole of that need.
When I was a little girl, my Mama would put me in a cardboard box with the old Sears catalog and a pair of scissors. I cut out all I thought I should lust for, which was everything, because I could clearly see we had none of it. As the years rolled, and I cut and cut, I began to notice that WANTING things made me feel bad. It made me feel POOR. So, to diminish the pain, I decided to see how much I DIDN’T need. All of a sudden, I started feeling better, and having fun. The year I went through the whole catalog without finding more than a half dozen things I thought I MIGHT need, was the year I saw that poor was a definition of need, not a definition of a lack of things. Now, need was something that I could do something about. My new definition of RICH became what I didn’t think I needed anymore. Sears catalog mission accomplished!
A child that has been properly loved will grow up excited about the thought of having children of their own to love. A girl that has been properly loved by a father, a father who taught her well what he needed back from her, will grow up feeling rich with Things That A Man Wants From A Woman, and will go looking for a man to enrich with those things. A cat who has been loved will go around the room, offering itself to be petted by all there, in confident expectation that all there will want to.
Someone with a heart that has been broken, however, is a city with its walls broken down; a cistern with no water. Never having received love properly, they have no real clue about what it is. Guessing what it is, they look to themselves, and see only need. Desperate for love, for connection, they go forth to garner love from others by looking for lacks, for NEEDS, to FILL. For fellow black holes to pour themselves down. But you cannot give from a place of lack. You cannot buy love by performing for it and you cannot fill your need for love by obligating them to RETURN what you gave them. About now I am sure you are scratching your head and saying “What?!”
Think about it. GIVING is what you do from a place of richness, from a place of already HAVING. But if richness is defined by What I Don’t Need, then, if I go out to GET love from others to Fill My Need, then what am I doing? “Wait a minute”, you might say. “Isn’t love the thing I am supposed to Get From Others?”
Well, yes. But HOW? And WHY? The devil can be in those details!
There is a love that Paul lists in the KJV as ‘inordinate affection’. A love that is not in the correct lineup; not in the right ORDER. I desperately dumped myself into the black holes of others’ needs for decades, trying to ‘earn’ love, because love is what I NEEDED. I spent myself down to the very bottom of my broken heart before I noticed something. I was looking for love in all the wrong places. My love was out of order. You need to go to the Getting Place to get something, but looking to myself or others was not the right place. Nor was it the right order. To give and receive love properly, I had to get my NEED for love taken care of first. I was looking for love in all the wrong places because I was afraid of the Right Place. I was afraid because of that broken heart. The key to the whole mess was to get my heart healed by my Daddy in heaven. Once I had made peace with the true Getting Place, then, and only then, was I able to give and receive love without fear or lack. Then and only then was I able to go to the True Source with my NEEDS, so I no longer asked others with needs also to TRADE love with me, which is the expectation that all performers for love are really looking for.
To put out love up front; to be a one way street for love, whether it is coming OR going, is inordinate affection; affection out of order. What order? The Two Great Commandments is where I found that correct order. First, I must get the free flow of love between me and my heavenly Abba going; then I must take care of my OWN needs, (and yes, a need is not something to ignore, unless I am employing self hatred by which to ignore it with, which is a sin). Then, and only then, can I go forth with a full bank account of riches to GIVE AWAY. No more ‘trading’ with black holes! No more EXPECTATIONS. People say that expectations kill a deal faster than anything. It is true. Especially with love. Expectations are weakness; they arise out of NEED. And we all know what the world does with weakness. Our needs are really and truly only safe with God. They do not make good trade goods in the market of love!
Yes, love is a two-way street; it happens BETWEEN two, but the closest it seems the world can come to love is dealing in the market of Lacks. We look to others for a mutual arrangement of Need Fulfillment.
True love comes from having too much to keep to ourselves. The Real Stuff comes packaged with this burning desire to pass Itself on; to share the Good Stuff, the fun. The devil’s substitute for that burning desire to share out of Richness, is to desire out of Need. False religions are filled with all the wrong things to do with that need. Some of them glorify it; some of them try to kill it or ignore it. None of them teach the correct thing to do with it, which is to take it to our Father. Need For Love drives the passions of the flesh, and the desires of the world, but there is only one safe thing to do with that need, and that is to fill that tank at the Heavenly gas pump of the love of our Father. That is the right order. Everything else comes after.
Laurita – this speaks greatly to me, for you describe much that I can identify with (despite ending a sentence with an adverb!)
Laurita, – YOU ARE loved!! – (and so am I!)
Yes, to “all of the above.” All your words are true, and all your words “resonate” and find their “amen” within my “self!” Your story (your testimony?) is a familiar one!
This promise is to who? (to all!) ~ and my God (the God I know- and the God you know- yes, – the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!) will provide.. (did He say may provide? or might provide?) No. “My God WILL provide ALL your needs according to HIs riches in glory by Christ Jesus!!”
And one of our needs is Love. All human creatures, (no) “all creatures” need to be loved- and to belong. And I am and you are- (and he and she) are “breathing creatures.” And we “breathing creatures” (whether Jew or Gentile!) need -“to be loved, and to belong.”
Ahh, “love!” Love is a many splendored thing! And? ~ The fruit of the Spirit is “love!” The “amen!” resounds and rings within me, “you cannot give (away) that which you do not first possess!!”
~ Let all things be done decently and in order! ~ First things first! We must (it is imperative!) that we “be loved!” We must KNOW (ginosko or eido? – lol!
God (does) love ME!! Oh? Love, even the love of God!- may be received or rejected!
(Please) let this “sink in.” Meditate.. (marinate) in this: “Because God SO LOVED, – He gave..” What wondrous Love is this, (O my soul?) There is no higher Love, than Calvary’s Love! Unfathomable! Unspeakable!- “This! (this) is Love!!: – not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent (GAVE) His (only begotten) Son as an atoning Sacrifice for our sins.
The “prodigal” son? Nooo!- The Prodigal Father!!! Loving and “Lavish” (prodigal!) Grace!!
The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.
I am “that” child! I am forgiven! – (and?) I am loved!! – (therefore) I (too) am now able to love! – To love others with the very same Love (the Love from Above!) – I have received. And how am I to “manifest” (make known) this Love? Give it away! – (to others)- “lavishly!”
Oh, love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure—
The saints’ and angels’ song.
How critical! – How “life-giving” is this Love!
When hoary time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.
(thank You for the cross, LORD!)
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the Love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
~ And now these three remain (forever!): faith, hope and Love. But the greatest of these is Love. ~ (1 Corinthians 13.13)
All beautiful thoughts! Reading I Corinthians 13 one day, the thought crossed my mind when I arrived at verse 8….God is Love, substitute the word Love for God…this is how He is toward you..now read it. This is what it says. “God is patient and kind, not jealous, not boastful, not proud, rude or selfish, not easily angered, and He keeps no record of wrongs. God does not gloat over your sins but takes His delight in the truth. God always bears up, always trusts, always hopes, always endures.” He never gives up on His children-hope is really alive!
I wonder how devotion is different than love; why use another word? Why didn’t Paul just say “unloving” again?
Love is giving to benefit another at cost to ourselves, but devotion seems to go further in that it is giving without thought of the cost to yourself. I think of the widow’s mite: she gave all that she had with no apparent consideration for herself and what she might need tomorrow. She didn’t give out of abundance, and she didn’t “give out of need” with the expectation that she would somehow indebt God to hundredfold return. She gave ALL out of what she had, without counting the cost. She poured herself out for better or worse. She was single-minded in her love. She was devoted.
The men who signed the American Declaration of Independence were devoted. The men and women who pour out their blood in service to their country are devoted. Yeshua was devoted. Do we have the devotion today to pour ourselves out for another, without counting the cost? Paul was right, in the last days we will see aspondos — and it’s not about just describing the “unsaved”. It’s us.
And a post-script: Devoted doesn’t necessarily imply what we might consider “good” sense. Addicts are devoted to the high; jihadists who crash their cars into innocent bystanders in Yerushalayim are devoted to Islam. The common thread is that the cost to self doesn’t matter. The focus is on carrying out the task at any cost.