Live Justly in the Reign of God
Treat Everyone Equally
Romans 13:8-14
The Message
8-10 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.
11-14 But
make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care
of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and
doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to
break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! God is putting the
finishing touches on the salvation work he began when we first believed.
We can’t afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious
daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around and
dissipation, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight. Get out of
bed and get dressed! Don’t loiter and linger, waiting until the very
last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about!For Reflection
Put
on the cloak of the Lord, Wear the armor of God proudly, March to the
order of God. Make the small stuff of obedience commonplace, habitual,
automatic goodness. Take on greed and break its strangle hold on the
world. Fight with arrows of truth.
Pray
that
you will be passionate about obedience to the Way. Pray for wisdom to
listen to God's call. Pray for strength to follow God even into the
fire of counter culture wisdom.
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