http://www.extremelove.com/a-debt-of-love/
Let no debt remain
outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves
others has fulfilled the law. ~ Romans 13:8
Some translations say, “let
love be your only debt.”
Have you ever owed anything to anyone or had an outstanding
debt? To have something unpaid,
unfinished, pending or ongoing can be comparable to a heavy cloud hanging over
your head or like a ball and chain. Debt
creates pressure and no one likes pressure.
To let “no debt remaining
outstanding,” is pretty easy to understand,
mortgages, hospital bills, college tuition, credit cards, taxes or car payments all
need to be paid and not left outstanding. But what does this clause
“except the continuing debt of love” look like? Imagine a world with no debt
other than love for one another. It’s an
interesting thought to think of love being a debt that we cannot pay off fully or
be done with.
Ponder for a moment, that you can never out-give love. We continually owe love no matter how many
times we have previously given it. Love
is our continual debt to each other. If
we owe love to someone at 3:00 pm we will still owe them love at 5:00 pm And this is what love looks like, “Love is
patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It
does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not
rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things,
believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” This is the continuing debt of love.