Romans 13: 8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
You would think after writing about love for over a year that we would run out of things to say. But the bible is full of discussions about God’s love and how we should love others so we haven’t even scratched the surface. If we keep studying passages like this, we’ll have to keep writing about it.
Today we see that love fulfills the law. We know that it is hard to be perfect. If we have ever told a little lie or stolen something, even something little like a pen or pencil, we have become law breakers. And do you know what that means? That means we disqualified ourselves from going to heaven. God’s standard is perfection and we just can’t manage that by ourselves. The good news is that Jesus died so our sins could be forgiven. Now that we have accepted that sacrifice we get to live under the rule of love. As Paul tells us in the passage above, “Love fulfills the law!”. We are free to love God and love others. And when we love, we are fulfilling the law. We are being ‘Jesus’ to those around us.
So go out there and fulfill the law. Love one another!
