Love Without Calculation (Proverbs 23:6-8)
Listen Here:
Proverbs 23:6-8
Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy;
do not desire his delicacies,
7 for he is like one who is inwardly calculating.
“Eat and drink!” he says to you,
but his heart is not with you.
8 You will vomit up the morsels that you have eaten,
and waste your pleasant words.
I like how these verses build on yesterday because with Proverbs 22:16 we lightly touched on what was implicit in that verse, though it's explicit in this one, and that’s the inwardly calculating man.
Let me tell you as someone who works in business, this is just everywhere. Maybe even more so given I work for a developer. I mean everyone wants our business — we pay everyone. So the amount of folks who will pamper you, honor you bodaciously, just do anything to earn your favor, is ridiculous. It's hard to know who and what is real, because inwardly those folks are calculating and calculating how they can elevate themselves.
And that’s exactly what Proverbs is warning us about — the stingy man, the calculating man, the guy who says, “Eat and drink,” but inside he’s measuring the cost. He’s not feeding you to bless you, he’s feeding you to use you. You leave his table with a full stomach but an empty soul.
But here’s the good news: the gospel sets a different kind of table.
God’s invitation doesn’t come with hidden strings or fine print. He isn’t calculating how to leverage you for His gain. He isn’t stingy with His portions. He isn’t like the man who says “eat and drink” but his heart isn’t with you. No, the Lord spreads a feast and says, “Come without money and without price” (Isa. 55). The only qualification is hunger. As Charles Bridges put it: “There are no such dangers linked to the invitations of the Gospel… our appetite increases with every mouthful we consume.”
And that contrast does something in me. Because I’ll be honest, I don’t just see the stingy man out there — sometimes I see him in here, in my own heart. That calculating spirit, that tit-for-tat mindset.
And yet the gospel exposes it and heals it. Because at the cross, Jesus prepared a table where He gave not bread but His body, not wine but His blood, and He did it with no calculation other than love. His heart is with us.
So where do you see this in you?
Where do you notice that calculating spirit in your own heart — the temptation to love with strings attached?
How does it strike you to realize that God’s table is utterly different, set without fine print or hidden costs?
And how might gazing at the cross free you to love someone this week without calculation — to bless them simply because His heart is with you?
Let’s pray.
