#DailyDevotion How Do You Show Love?

Romans 13⁸Don’t owe anyone anything but to love one another. If you love the other person, you have kept the Law. ⁹The commandments: “Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet,” and any others are summed up in this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰Love does no wrong to another person. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the Law.

Financial planning? Perhaps. The Israelites were commanded by the Lord in the Torah(Law) not to be borrowers of money but to lend freely. But with the context of the next few verses it certainly means something greater than that. I think it means more to not owe anyone any favors, to not be indebted to them because sometimes those debts are repaid by a request to do something evil, that you ordinarily wouldn’t do.

So Paul exhorts us to not owe anyone anything but the love the Lord Jesus Christ has commanded. If you love other people, and love here is not a feeling i.e. a romantic feeling or any other feeling, you have kept the Law, the Torah. So then Paul explicates what that Law is, “Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet.” These are all summed up with the command of the Lord, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” In other words, the Lord looks at the Law as Roman and not as a Briton. What I mean by that is this in Roman law you go from the general down to the specific. You don’t need the specifics, generally, because the general law covers all aspects of the specifics. Whereas in Briton or common law, you start at specifics and from lots of specific case law you come up with a general law.

You may not always have a specific command from the Lord about any particular aspect going on in your life. Jesus has left us his guidance, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” As Paul says in verse ten “Love does not wrong to another person.” Again he says, “love is the fulfillment of the Law.” If you can’t figure it out, well use a concordance or your computer and do a word search. I’m sure you can find some guidance in the Old Testament Law. But seriously, just think about it for a moment and just ask yourself, what would I want done to me in this instance. Yes, it may bring you some harm, but the Lord didn’t say, “Do unto others that which causes you the least trouble or harm.” That’s the devil and your selfish flesh talking.

Now just how does love your neighbor cover the whole Law as Paul says, James also says this and in fact so does Jesus? What happened to the first table of the Law? You know, the commandments concerning God? Well first let’s step back and remember this passage here is about not owing anyone anything, i.e. your neighbor. But beyond that, if we are truly keeping the second table of the Law, “Love your neighbor” you are keeping the first table, “Love God.” How is this so you ask. Just this, your neighbor has been made in the image and likeness of God. The Lord tells us this in Genesis chapters 1, 4 and 8. John writes, ^20“If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he’s a liar. If anyone doesn’t love his brother whom he has seen, he can’t love God Whom he hasn’t seen.” So how you treat your neighbor is how you treat God. Thanks be to God this command to love our neighbor is backed up by God’s great love for us. As John also writes, ¹⁰“This is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the payment for our sins.”

Heavenly Father, as you have loved us, give us faith to love one another. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.