Whatever More You Spend

"Whatever more you spend, I will repay you." (Luke 10:35)

That is the sentence anyone who loves people would like to have said to them, because the great fear of loving people is running out. That is what stops us at the front door. Not cruelty. Arithmetic. I have this much and no more, and if I give it to this person there will be nothing left for the next one, or for my own family, or for me. We have watched people give until they were hollow, and we do not want to become that. So we ration. Quietly, respectably, we ration.

And the Samaritan looks at an innkeeper and says, spend whatever it takes, I will settle it when I come back. He is guaranteeing an amount he does not know. That is exactly what Christ has said to you about your neighbor. Spend it. Whatever it costs. I am coming back, and I will settle the account, and I am good for it.

You are not the source. You never were. You have been living as though the love you give comes out of a fixed reserve that only you can replenish, and no wonder you guard it. But you are the innkeeper, not the treasury. Someone else has already covered the bill and promised to return and settle whatever more it costs, and he has not once run out. So stop rationing what was never yours to run dry. Give the care, and let the One who is good for it worry about the account.