By: Pastor Jarren Rogers

Love without distinction, without calculation. Love without procrastination. Just love.” – David Jeremiah

If you’ve ever been in debt, you know how constraining it can be. You feel it, deep in the pit of your stomach, all day long. It’s like a weight on your shoulders that causes them to droop. You can’t stop thinking about it. Your debt is on your mind from the moment you wake up until you go to sleep.

If someone is in debt, they are usually working to pay it off. They work hard, not only to life the weight of debt off of their shoulders, but because they desire some peace of mind.

The truth of the matter is that we are all in debt. Each of us has something that we are indebted to that we should be working hard to pay off. If we take Scripture seriously, each of us has a debt that we owe to someone else. We each have a huge, huge debt that we will never be able to pay off.

So, what is it?

“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8).

Each of us has an outstanding debt to the rest of mankind. Not a debt of money or possessions, but a debt of love.

What if we actually lived like that? What if we lived every day with a debt of love for others? What if you had a debt of love to everyone you encountered and you worked hard to pay it off?

If our debt of love weighed us down as much as our debt of money, I think we would love more. If, from the moment we woke up to the moment we fell asleep, we thought about our outstanding debt of love to all people, we would love more. I think that if we felt it in the pit of our stomach we would love people more.

I think Jesus felt that. I think Jesus saw the debt of love that he owed to all of mankind. The same debt that we owe. I think that’s why He showed love to the lost, broken, and needy. I think that is why He showed love to those people who are hard to love. I think that is why He came and died for us. Because He loved us so much.

Live every day as if you are paying back an unending debt of love to others. Pay it off with a kind word, and unexpected gesture, a listening ear, a gentle word, laughing with someone, crying with someone.

My prayer is that God will enable each of us to feel the debt of love that we owe and that He will empower us to begin paying it off, each and every day.

Parents: Tell your children about the debt of love that we have. Explain to them ways that they can pay it off.