The Simple Power of Love
Romans 13:8-10 You should owe nothing to anyone, except that you will always owe love to each other. The person who loves others has done all that the law commands. The law says, “You must not commit adultery, you must not murder anyone, you must not steal, you must not want what belongs to someone else.” All these commands and all other commands are really only one rule: “Love your neighbour the same as you love yourself.” Love doesn’t hurt others. So loving is the same as obeying all the law.
With so much bad stuff going on around us you have to ask yourself, what’s the antidote? What’s the solution? How can we make it stop?
Husbands cheating on wives, and wives on husbands. The violence, the murders, the dishonesty, greed, envy. And let’s face it, you and I are guilty of some bad stuff too. Hopefully not that bad, but we get cranky with people, we’re jealous sometimes, pushy, rude …whatever. The truth? We, too, make bad stuff happen.
So, question … how do we make our bad stuff stop? It turns out that the answer’s much simpler than we might think.
Romans 13:8-10 You should owe nothing to anyone, except that you will always owe love to each other. The person who loves others has done all that the law commands. The law says, “You must not commit adultery, you must not murder anyone, you must not steal, you must not want what belongs to someone else.” All these commands and all other commands are really only one rule: “Love your neighbour the same as you love yourself.” Love doesn’t hurt others. So loving is the same as obeying all the law.
Can it really be that simple? Well, actually, yes it can. When you choose to love the next person – your “neighbour” as the Apostle Paul puts it – your part in that bad stuff simply … stops.
And those neighbours are perhaps going to look different, sound different, believe differently, act differently to you; perhaps even annoy you occasionally. Love them anyway because our bad stuff stops when we love our neighbour just as much as we love ourselves.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.