Church Notes: The Debt of Love
Trust me, it can seem very hard to love. Lately, when I feel people have offended me, I just take a step back and try to recalibrate in terms of who Christ has made me, and not what experience has created around me.
Experience is not the best teacher. Knowledge is.
Those who let experience shape them come out far more distorted than imaginable. Pure, unrefined knowledge of God is all the shaping we need. So that our experience is shaped by our growing knowledge of God. The reverse is an ineffective way to live life.
I had several issues lately, but one stood out as the most annoying. It was the fact that the person causing these issues was content to conveniently ignore every one, and every effort to bring sense to the table. However, I struggled with keeping my actions motivated by love. It was hard. But I did my best. In the end, I simply resolved to keep away and keep out. I was just tired, and I was not going to “look at that side anymore”. Let everyone be in their own lane.
That was working well till the Holy Spirit slid into my DM. And I began to really look at the intricacies of love in the body of Christ.
Love is really the defining character of the Christian.
When we look at a myriad of words from the Bible, you will see that there is an emphasis on love. In John 13:35, Christ mentions that the hallmark of Christians is in love for one another. In John 15, Jesus mentions that the purpose of His instructions is that the disciples love one another. And in verse 12 of the same chapter, he sets the standard of the love that must exist in the Word of God: as I (Jesus) have loved you. In Colossians 3, Paul describes love as the bond of perfection.

Logically, if the Bible says we should aim for perfection (Matthew 5:48), then it means we must gravitate towards growing in love for people.
Paul goes on to say that love is how we fulfil the law, in Romans 5:18. Simply put, love eradicates sin because it means people are not motivated to please self, but to do what is best for others. At the root of sin is selfishness. So, love is able to prevail over all types of sin.
Perhaps, what has struck me the most is what I wrote about in my last note, concerning Jeremiah 31:3.
God told them, “I’ve never quit loving you and never will. Expect love, love, and more love!
God actually made the people understand that they could hold him to His love for them. And since He wants us to be as He is, and made us as He is in Christ, He expects us to live as He is. In Romans 5:18, where Paul writes that we ought to owe no man any debt other than the debt of love, he actually highlighted a profound character trait of God. And that trait must be in us as well.
God put Himself in debt, and owes us love. We ought to owe our brethren love. That means that no matter what they do to us, all they should expect from us is love, love, and more love.
We can only, as believers, respond in love. Simple as that.
