Romans 13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
I’m in debt! And it’s a debt that won’t go away no matter how many Dave Ramsey classes I take. If you follow Christ, you, too, have an enduring debt. He tells us we owe love to other people.
This isn’t romantic jargon that lets us think of love in generalities. Jesus gets pretty specific when he says “love your neighbor as yourself” (Romans 13:9). That means loving those “neighbors” who get up close and personal enough to hurt us. “Neighbors” who profess a totally different worldview than we do. Even those “neighbors” whose personalities just rub us the wrong way. Jesus says if we’ve been saved by his love, we gotta’ pass it on to others.
I’ll be the first to admit the choice to love doesn’t always come easy. Hating sin but loving the sinner is not for the faint of heart. But we open the door to love when we understand changing people’s minds isn’t in our job description. Bob Goff writes in Love Does, “Most people need love and acceptance a lot more than they need advice.” He says, “I used to want to fix people, but now I just want to be with them.” It’s a mindset I need to foster more. Let God do the fixing.
But our world seems to be going in the opposite direction. Hate, rather than love, permeates every aspect of society, (triple that in an election year). Even people who do love get accused of being hateful simply for holding different views. It must grieve God’s heart. And it should grieve our hearts as well.
A friend from fifty years ago recently called out of the blue. I was so shocked to hear from him that I didn’t even ask how he got my number! My mind immediately transported me back to the time we were both semi-hippie students at the University of Colorado. Memories of Rocky Mtns, hitchhiking to the Grand Canyon and listening to the John Denver overshadowed our many differences. And created an atmosphere of love.
I think that’s how love operates. It helps us focus on what we have in common with our fellow humans more than what separates us. It serves as a starting place that frees us to pay what we owe!