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[Music] Romans chapter 13 verses 7 through 10. Welcome to day three in our daily
drive time devotions. Look at Romans chapter 13.

In this chapter we're continuing our look in this section of Romans that started
in chapter 12 and goes to the end of the book that really covers a new way of
thinking. How do you think like a servant? How do you think like a servant in a
relationship with God?

How do you think like a servant in the way you relate to yourself, your own
thinking? How do you think like a servant in the way that you relate to the
government? And now today as we begin verse 7 of Romans chapter 13, how do you
think like a servant in the way that you relate to your neighbor?

Love your neighbor as Jesus told us and that phrase is repeated in these verses.
Romans chapter 13 verse 7 and 8 says this, "Give everyone what you owe him. If
you owe taxes, pay taxes.

If revenue, then revenue. If respect, then respect. If honor, then honor.

Let no debt remain outstanding. Accept the continuing debt to love one another.
For he who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law.

" As the Bible talks about other people here in our relationship, our servant
relationship to other people, to our neighbor, the people that live around us,
it reminds us of two simple things here. Owe them nothing and owe them
everything. That's one of the ways that you love your neighbor.

Owe them nothing and owe them everything. First, owe them nothing. The Bible
says we should be debt free in our relationships.

Now I know the word owe. The first thing we think of is don't take out a loan
from your neighbor. Don't owe them any money.

But that's not the main idea that's talked about here. The main idea here is
relationships, the debt of love to one another. There should be no forgiveness
that you owe to someone else.

Is that debt paid up in your life? There should be no apology that you continue
to owe to someone else. Is that debt paid up in your life?

There should be no gratitude that you continue to owe someone else. It's never
been expressed for whatever reason. Forgetfulness, maybe the fact that you're
angry with them about something else and maybe just distance and maybe some
other issue has arisen that's made you not want to tell them that you're
grateful.

There should be no debt of gratitude towards someone else. How about help? Just
practical help.

Someone that you know I should help them. Do not let that remain an outstanding
debt. Go ahead and pay it.

Do it now. Let no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt to love one
another. There is a debt that I do have.

By the way, before I go on to owe them everything, this whole idea of debt here,
the question that many have behind this is does this mean monetarily that I
can't have any personal debt of any kind? This is not talking mainly about
finances but about relationships. Tomorrow we're going to take a very close look
at what that means, this phrase, because it has a lot to do with understanding
how to understand the Bible.

You owe them nothing but you also owe them everything. This continuing debt to
love one another except to love and love is everything. So verse 9 says this,
"The commandments do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not
covet, and whatever other commandment there may be are summed up in this one
rule.

" Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore,
love is the fulfillment of the law.

Love is the thou shalt, which causes all the thou shalt nots of the commandments
to become part of our lifestyles. In order to live out the thou shalt nots,
you've got to have the thou shalt of love. Try to say that five times fast and
so you love your neighbor.

Love your neighbor. When Jesus said love your neighbor as yourself, that was the
immediate question that came up the first time he said this. You might remember
from studying the Gospels that when Jesus told a crowd of people to love their
neighbor as themselves, there was a teacher of the law in the crowd that day and
that teacher asked what he thought was a very wise question.

Well, who is my neighbor? And you might think that Jesus would give a very
simple short answer because it's a pretty silly question if you really think
about it, but Jesus took it seriously. He took it very seriously.

He told a story, one of the most famous stories in the Bible, the story of a
good Samaritan. He told the story of a man who had been robbed and was beaten
and dying beside a road and two men who walked by, two religious leaders who
walked by, and for whatever reason didn't see themselves as a neighbor, as
someone who needed to help this person. Maybe it was their fear.

They thought they might get beat up themselves. Maybe it was their
self-importance. They thought they had more important things to do.

Maybe they just didn't think about it. But then a Samaritan came by, somebody
from the middle section of the nation of Israel at that time, the Samaritans,
and saw this man who was in need and put him on his donkey and took him to an
inn and paid for his care and bandaged him. And Jesus asked the crowd that day
who was the neighbor?

And the answer was obvious. It was the Samaritan. Now, you and I might miss
something very important in this story.

As Jesus told this story to the Jewish crowd that day, the Samaritan was the
least likely to be the hero of the story. And Jesus was talking about a person
that most in that crowd had a prejudice against. The Samaritans were the butt of
many of their jokes, and yet Jesus chooses the Samaritan to be the hero of this
story, to help them to see that anyone can love someone else if they only choose
to meet a person's need at that very moment of need.

Who is my neighbor? They're the person who needs my help right then and right
now. And so Jesus says, "Love your neighbor as yourself.

" And we even trip up on those last few words, as yourself. What does that mean?
Does that mean to love your neighbor selfishly?

How does that work? Well, the best verses I know in the Bible that help me to
understand this are Philippians chapter 2, and verses 3 and 4, and then going on
towards the end of the chapter. The Bible tells us to do nothing with selfish
ambition or empty conceit.

And then this incredible phrase, "Consider one another as more important than
yourself. " Consider another person as more important than yourself? Wow!

That's powerful words about how you and I should act. And I don't know about
you. I don't feel like I could act that way.

I look at myself and I see the selfishness I live with every day, and I think,
"How in the world am I going to love someone like that? " Well, Philippians
chapter 2 gives us the answer when it says, "Have this attitude in yourself,
which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did
not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but he emptied himself.
" He took the form of a bond servant, and having been found in appearance as a
man, he emptied himself.

And therefore also God highly exalted him because he was willing to go to a
cross. The only reason he did that is because he saw our importance, and he made
us more important than himself. The only way I can love my neighbor is by
drawing on the love of Jesus Christ for me.

He's the only one who can give me the power to love someone else that kind of
way. You'll love your neighbor. Now, if I'm going to love with that kind of
humble love, I have to realize I can't do it motivated by fear.

When we're afraid, when I'm afraid, I become selfish. When you're afraid, you
become selfish. When you're afraid, you start thinking, "If I don't take care of
myself, no one else will.

" A lot of us live with that fear, and when you have that fear, you can't love
your neighbor as yourself. You might love your neighbor after you've taken care
of yourself. That's very different than loving your neighbor as yourself.

When you're afraid, you can't love in this kind of way. But when we lose our
fear, then we're able to love. That's why 1 John says there is no fear in love,
but perfect love casts out fear.

We have to experience the perfect love of Jesus Christ in a daily kind of way in
order to love our neighbor as ourself. This may sound like a very simple phrase,
"Love your neighbor as yourself," but it takes the love of Jesus Christ revealed
and expressed and strengthening my heart and life moment by moment in order to
do this. These verses remind us that love is an unpaid debt, but I get the
opportunity to pay every day.

We talk about loving your neighbor as you love yourself. We talk about love
doing no harm to its neighbor because love is the fulfillment of the law,
fulfilling all that God has told us to do. This is not just about philosophy.

This is not just about ideas. God's given us His word in order for us to act on
it, to do it. And so I'd like to spend an extended time in prayer today, praying
that God would give us the strength and the wisdom and the direction to live out
this phrase that we all understand, but that we have a challenge to do every
day.

Our Father, you've taught us, "Love your neighbor as yourself. " And we see the
challenge in that. If we're going to love in that kind of way, Jesus Christ, we
need your strength.

And it's not a strength that we find once in our lives and then live on that
strength the rest of the days. It's a strength that we need every day, renewed
and refreshed, because it's a strength that grows out of our daily relationship
with you. As we connect with you and sense your love for us, then we have the
strength to love the people that are around us.

And so right now, we connect with you, Jesus Christ. You're the vine. We're the
branches.

That means that we draw our strength from you. We grow because of you. And we
thank you for your love.

There is nothing, there is nothing that can separate us from your love. And
those verses from chapter 8 that we studied a few weeks ago, they remind us of
the strength that we find in your love. And so I pray that knowing we're loved
by you, there is no fear in love.

We'd be able to love those who are around us. And we pray right now that you'd
help us to see who to love and how to love today. Lord, we can't love someone
yesterday.

We can't love them tomorrow. We can only love them today because love is a
practical expression. It's an action.

And so today, show us who to love and show us how to love. Father, it may be
someone we've never met. Help us to love them today.

It may be somebody at our office, somebody that we work with, somebody at our
school. God, help us to express love today. It may be someone, God, that we've
seen to this point as an enemy.

Someone maybe who is acting like an enemy, who is against us in every way. God,
help us to love today. It may be someone, maybe someone in my own family.

God, help me to love that person today. It may be someone who is sitting with me
right now listening to this. Help me to love that person today.

Help me to see who to love, but also help me to see how. I admit, I don't always
know how to love. God, you can see straight to our hearts.

You know exactly what we need every moment, but I can't see that. So sometimes
even in trying to love others, I stumble. I don't say the right words, or if I
try to say the right words, they don't come out like I wanted them to.

And then sometimes I feel embarrassed that I didn't love as I wanted to love.
Lord, help me today to set that embarrassment aside and to take the risk to
love, because I know that taking the risk to love is so much more healthy and
meaningful than taking the risk to not love. Today, help me to love people by
praying for them.

Help me to love people by serving them. Help me to love people by sharing with
them the good news of what you've done in my life. Help me to love people by
encouraging them.

God, help me to love in some small way like you love. Because of your love for
me, strengthen me to love the people that are in my life today. I pray this in
Jesus name.