Owe Nothing But Love

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Owe Nothing but Love

 

Scripture: Romans 13:8-10 (ESV)

8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

 

Meditation

            Paul’s words here run very much against the grain of 21st century America. In this age of 17 trillion dollar national debts, the many billions in student loan and credit card debt we owe. It seems we owe everybody something. We owe so much money that we perhaps forget the love we owe God and our neighbor.

            Since we become slaves to those to whom we owe money, and since we owe so much of it, it is no wonder that we have blinders on when it comes to loving our neighbors and most importantly our God. We know in our heads that God loved the world so much that he sent Jesus to die to erase our sin debt. God was trying to give us a clean slate so we could be free to love God and neighbor without restraint.

            The human heart is forever wandering from God however. We need to be reminded and encouraged to love God and our neighbor more often. Will you become someone’s encourager today? If we would each take the time to encourage our brothers and sisters in the Lord to be more loving perhaps the outside world would notice that these Christians live differently than them.

            We can hope that they will be encouraged to come and try Christianity once they see how we love one another. Let us pray that we will become lovers and encouragers to each other.

 

Prayer:

Holy God, let us learn to love one another. Forgive us for the times when we have been judgmental and harsh with our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Open our eyes to see all people as you see them. With love and mercy let us treat all others as your children. Let us learn to worship you in Spirit and Truth. Help us today to come to love You more. Amen

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