Everyone Else

"Don't run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the law has been after all along. The law code—don't sleep with another person's spouse, don't take someone's life, don't take what isn't yours, don't always be wanting what you don't have, and any other "don't" you can think of—finally adds up to this: Love other people as well as you do yourself. You can't go wrong when you love others. When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is love." Romans 13:8-10 (The Message)

     Paul's letter to the Romans speaks about love and how it is used to fulfill the law. I've struggled many times in the past trying to do all I can to earn my salvation, but I slowly came to the understanding that my salvation can in no way be earned through my efforts. If it were possible then Christ died in vain, but Christ came to seal up the debt of sin I owed and only through him can I be free. In doing this for me Christ showed me an aspect of the law that I myself can fulfill. The labor of love He gave me can be transferred to others. 


     In Matthew 22:36-40 Jesus was tested with a question, in His reply he sets the course of this new law which has the world spinning on an entirely different axis. The passage states, "Teacher, which command in God's Law is the most important?" Jesus said, "'Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.' This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' These two commandments are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them." The two greatest commandments have nothing to do with anything you can do to earn salvation through performance, but it has everything to do with channeling the love and appreciation of God's gift you received and use it to show others this love and change the world.

      I have seen what love can do and it is a marvelous undertaking to live a selfless life pouring love into others. Though it is a great challenge, there is nothing more fulfilling.