Romans 13:8-14
Love Your Neighbor (cf. Mark 12:31; James 2:8)
8 Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery," "You shall not murder," "You shall not steal," "You shall not bear false witness," "You shall not covet," and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Put on Christ
11 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. 12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.
What we owe cannot pay the price for our sin to earn forgiveness, for that is by grace alone, yet we are indebted to love one another as Christ loved us (Ephesians 5:2, 1 John 3:14, 4:19) in thankful return. This is living the commandments from the heart as originally intended by God for us to do and made possible by first removing the necessity of keeping these completely by nailing them to the cross (Colossians 2:14) that we might read what He has written on our hearts in place of cold stone tablets (2 Corinthians 3:3). We fulfill the commands of God by loving God with everything we have and loving our fellow man as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39) to the praise, honor, and glory of God in Christ. These are from the thoughts and intents of our hearts out into the actions of our speech and the works of our hands according to the direction we set our feet to walk out life. True love does no harm to others but fulfills the law in doing them only good as far as it is possible (Romans 12:18) in our hands to do. To do this, we must continually put off the old sinful man and put on Christ especially in light of the growing darkness settling upon the world facing the inevitable and terrible judgment to come. We are called and reminded to remain alert and not snooze into slumber (Proverbs 6:9, Isaiah 5:27, 1 Thessalonians 5:5-6, 9), but remain vigilant and valiant for the truth lived out in out thoughts and deeds. The day is passing since the Lord ascended back into heaven and we are His lights shining the glory of God and His gospel in this present darkness (Ephesians 6:12) until His return. We have the armor of God and the assurance of being kept safe in eternity to walk through the debauchery of this world lost in sin who need to turn from it to Him in repentance and faith, safe and secure from all alarms. Our armor is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God (2 Corinthians 4:6) which allows us to wade through the battle to truth’s victory as we avoid participating in the works of darkness which tarnish our armor and weaken it if we allow ourselves to go back. We therefore put off the evil works of drunken and riotous living along with unbridled passions and lust of the flesh by giving no room for it to do as our flesh desires as we keep killing our old man (Romans 8:12-14) and his works of sin in rebellion against the Lord. Put on Christ!
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