“Jesus when he summed up the whole law said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul and strength and then love your neighbor, even real little ones. Love them the way you love yourself. And he says, I’ll help you do that all the time, my love is always available to you.
The Psalmist says: The earth is filled with your love, O LORD; teach me your decrees. (Psalm 119:64)
Everywhere I go, everywhere I turn, every room, every created piece of the universe, is an expression of God’s love; and it’s always there, it’s always available to me. Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law.
‘Romans 13:8 – Paul, here, is using kind of a financial metaphor to talk about love. He says to let every interaction in your life be governed by the law of love. It’s kind of an odd thing about us, we get very good at tracking finances in our life. In the newspaper everyday I read about how financial stuff is going. How your portfolio is doing. We`re not so good at tracking love.
You know the difference between a deposit and a withdrawal? When I make a deposit I am adding value. I’m building up reserves. Relationally and spiritually in God’s eyes, when I make a deposit in a life of a person then I am honoring love. In God’s eyes, a deposit is always honoring love. Might feel pleasant and joyful to that person, it might not. There might be a sting to it, but I am honoring the law of love. Withdrawal, on the other hand, is when I take away value – when I take value out, when the reserves go down. A withdrawal is always the violation of love. Withdrawal is always a violation of love. It might feel good to the other person.
Every relationship has kind of a running balance. Good or bad, big or small, red ink of black ink. Just as surely as you have a balance in your financial accounts, it is true in your relational life spiritually. That is why Paul writes: Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. (Romans 12:10) In other words, don’t try to get more out of a relationship than what it is that you are putting into it because if the balance is high – good things happen in a relationship and if the balance is high, you can confront somebody when they need it and they will probably trust you.
God says in the Old Testament, you know a mother always remembers her children. It’s the way a mother is. The way she is wired up. But even if she were to forget, I could never forget you my people. The LORD your God . . . will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17) If a little kid gets cranky or anxious, and a mom can quiet the child with love. “He will rejoice over you with singing.”
Have you ever had anybody rejoice over you with singing lately? Have somebody just walk up to you and be so happy to see you they`d just burst into song? The Bible says God loves you so much he will rejoice over you with singing in the way that a mom does to a little child.
Of course, the ultimate expression of this love was that when we had a moral debt to God that we could never pay, Jesus came to this earth and went to the cross to pay the debt that we could never pay. There’s an old song, some of you will know it.
Oh, to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be Everyday, everyday, everyday this debt of love. So, God asks us to repay that debt of love that, in a sense we owe him, by loving the people that He loves so much.
Also Read : What is Love
