“Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirement of God’s law.”
Romans 13:10(NLT)
No matter who you are or where you are in this world, the one thing that brings all people together is the love of God in Christ. This is the kind of love that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ has demonstrated for us, his brothers and sisters. It allows us to make universal actions and expressions of God’s goodness. Heavenly Father is so pleased when we continue the legacy of the love of Christ, and heaven rejoices when we honor Him by being a blessing to others, and revealing this love to them. A lot of us miss these opportunities, because we feel that we don’t have anything to give, but this simply is not true.
In 1Peter 4:10-11 (NLT), God tells us, “10 God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. 11 Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.” God’s Word is true! He has told us that we each have a special and unique gift, so we can rest assured that we’ve been blessed with a gift that we can use to be a blessing to the Body of Christ.
There are many ways that we can impact the lives of others. These are not always big things. They are often small ways in which we can fill in the gaps and make people’s lives better. With everything that is going on in our world, many are feeling sad, disappointed, and alienated. We have neighbors, co-workers, and people in our faith communities that are feeling this way, and we don’t even know it. They are longing for a demonstration of God’s love, even though they may not articulate it. We don’t always have to spend money or inconvenience ourselves significantly in order to be a blessing. A smile or a morning greeting is sometimes all it takes.
God encourages us to begin to operate in our gifts. Even if we are not sure what they are, we should have an intention to show forth His love in some way. Many of us get up each morning to go to work, and we are not sure what each workday might bring. We have been trained to do certain things, but there are other duties that we perform and we haven’t had any training. We just do what has to be done, and we have confidence that we are up for the task. We can’t let it be said that we will do less when it comes to the things of God. We may not know from one day to the next how we are to use our gifts or who might be the recipient of them, but we don’t have to know it. This is the beauty of walking in the Spirit. The indwelling Holy Spirit will guide us to accomplish exactly what God desires us to do each day.
God’s love is everlasting. He just keeps flooding our lives with it every day. As we give it out, He pours more into us. A refusal to give out in a Godly way will block our blessings, because a refusal to give love blocks the flow of God’s love through us.
We must understand that one of the highest expressions of God’s love is to show it to others. Jesus Christ has placed the responsibility of the ministry of reconciliation in our hands for this reason. We can dot all the ‘I’s and cross all the ‘t’s through love, because God tells us in Romans 13:10 that love fulfills the requirement of His statues, commandments, and laws. If we will simply begin to listen to the Spirit and move by his promptings, we will fulfill the requirement and grow in God’s love. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Love Fulfills the Requirement”, written by Kim Times, edited by Reverend Fran Mack for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2017. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.