Romans 13:8(NKJV) 8Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.
The assignment for our church in 2012 is to possess our land of promises. The people of Israel were delivered from Egyptian bondage for a purpose. That purpose was not the wilderness, although many wonderful things happened in the wilderness. When they came to the borders of the Promised Land of Canaan God told them they were to possess the land. That word means to take complete control of the land. I believe we have been delivered from the bondage of the devil and given a mandate to possess our land of promises as it is laid out in the Bible.
In order to do this, we must drive out the enemies that keep us from our possession. Those enemies come from three basic arenas: The world, the flesh and the devil. The world involves all of the outward influences, such as culture and the pressures of life that come against us. The flesh is speaking of the inward things, such as emotional wounds and bad habits that keep us from receiving the blessing of God. Finally, we do have an active enemy, the devil, whose goal is to hurt God and his family in any way he can. If we defeat these three enemies and drive them out of our lives, we will walk in victory.
We have taken the actions of Jesus when he drove the money-changers from the temple as our pattern. He was aggressive in his actions against those who were keeping the temple from fulfilling God’s purpose. We must begin to apply aggressive action in a number of areas if we are going to drive our enemies out of our land of promises.
Today we want to begin to look at another area I believe we must become more aggressive in our actions. We must become more aggressive in our love walk. The love of God as expressed by Jesus Christ is one of the most revolutionary concepts ever introduced to humanity.
In today’s verse, I want to begin by pointing out that we do not just love by choice. Paul said we should owe no man anything except love. We can look at this from many points of view. In context, Paul is talking about honor and respect. In the verses before verse 8 he is talking about those in authority and how we should relate to them. We should not “owe” them submission or the honor due their office.
It is certainly possible to use this statement as a general principle when it comes to financial debt. The Bible has much to say about keeping ourselves free from that kind of debt. Certainly, in our day it is a lesson we need to learn. However, I want to focus on what Paul says we do owe, not on what we should not owe.
Paul is very clear. Owe no man anything except love. If we read this correctly, the emphasis is on the fact that we do owe love. I believe we must recognize that we owe a debt to the world around us. We owe a debt to our brothers and sisters. The love we must walk in as Christians is not something we do out of generosity. It is something we must do out of debt.
To whom do we owe this debt? It really is not a debt to the people in the church or the people in the world. This debt is owed to the Father and His son Jesus. Look at the most famous scripture in the world.
John 3:16(NKJV) 16For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
No matter who you, are at one time, you were part of the world that God so loved His love caused him to give his only begotten Son so you could be have eternal life. That is the debt we owe. It is a debt we can never repay. There is nothing we can give to God that will repay him for that kind of love. The only thing we can do for him is love him in return.
However, God has given us a way to repay the love he gave us in salvation. In John 17, Jesus said that he was sending us into the world in the same way the Father sent him into the world. Jesus was sent to pay a debt of sin he did not owe. We received the benefit of that payment. Now we have been sent into the world pay a debt we do not owe in the natural. However, it is one we do owe it in the spirit. Jesus paid my debt because God loved the world, now I must pay the debt of love I owe God by giving the world the same love.
I believe we repay it by becoming aggressive in our acts of love towards those around us. I believe we must become aggressive in our love towards the Lord, the Body of Christ and the world. If we begin to look at our actions towards those three areas, I believe we will begin to drive out our enemies.
How do we become more aggressive in our love actions toward God? We must begin by loving his word. We have looked at this from a number of aspects in this study and our love walk is no different. If we do not choose to act in love towards the Word, we will never act in love towards other areas. How do we love the Word of God? We read it. We spend time with it. We give a place of priority in our lives.
We must also love God’s ways. We must make a quality decision that we are going to find out how God wants us to live and make the necessary changes. If you truly love someone, you will do what you must to please them. In marriage, for instance, selfishness will not work. If we are not willing to consider the ways of our partner, we had best not get married. We must be willing to actively conform to God’s way of doing things.
Finally, we are going to have to love God’s will for our lives. We must be willing to say as Jesus said, “Not my will but yours be done in my life.” When he was faced with the decision of whose will he was going to follow, he had to choose God’s will. If we love God, we must get aggressive in our pursuit of the will of God.
Many times in my life, I would have said, “But I don’t know what that is.” I have learned that the way to begin learning what the will of God is is to decide you will choose it over your own will. There is not much point in God telling you what he wants if you have not made the decision to follow it no matter what.
You might say, “If I knew what it was I would be able to choose it. How can I choose to follow God’s will if I don’t know what it is?” The answer is simple. You must choose to follow it no matter what it is. Knowing his will is irrelevant in deciding to follow it. He is God!
All of this requires decision. There are emotions connected with loving God. However, emotions cannot lead. Most of the time we do not feel an overwhelming sense of love for God. That does not mean we do not love him. Anyone in any true relationship has times when they feel love and times when they do not.
This is certainly true in marriage. However, we love because we choose to love. We walk in love actions because we know that love is there or we would not have married. Love actions will lead to love feelings. The same is true of our relationship with the Lord. We must aggressively act on our love for God.
When we do, wonderful things will happen. The enemies who want to keep us from our land of promises will lose their grip on our lives. They cannot function in a person dominated by the love of God.
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