You Don’t Have to Earn Love | Romans 13 | Crossroads Daily

I don't know, you just get caught up in your own things, and you're like, I gotta get the laundry done. Like, I'm the only thing, I'm the only person in the world, and this is the task that has to be done, right? And then you see that, and you're like, oh yeah, other people live here with me, right? And the way that I treat them and the way that I speak to them really, really matters. This is the Crossroads Daily. No experts, no perfect people, just honest conversations about what happens when the Bible shows up in real life. Welcome to Crossroads Daily. My name is Caleb. I'm Caroline. I'm Chris. I'm Victor. We've been reading through the book of Romans together, and we're gonna drive to the end here this week. We're in Romans chapter 13. Really a lot of what Paul's talking about is how we interact with each other, how we love each other, while he's writing to a church in Rome, right in the heart of an empire, that's not friendly to Christianity, which is interesting to have that context in the background. One of the things that really jumped out to me from this chapter is, Paul says all the law, all the commandments, is summed up in love your neighbor as yourself. My question for you to get started is, when have you seen someone do that recently? Have you seen someone love their neighbor as themselves? I think that would stick out in your mind. And I'll start, because I'm the question asker. I have to always have the man answer. The right answer. I'm the question asker.

I have longer time to think about it. Last week, I was on the way to the laundromat, because the washing machine was broken. That's not a good thing. After five days, I had mountains of laundry, and I was going to the laundromat, and I got there and realized they didn't bring the soap. So I went to Dollar Tree, which was right beside it, to buy some detergent, and I was in line. There was a lady in front of me buying three happy birthday balloons. I was not really paying attention. I was trying to convince myself not to buy candy. All that candy is right there. Right? It's like a dollar. I can't buy this candy. Anyway, this lady was buying birthday balloons, and the cashier rung her up, and she said, actually, take one of those balloons away, because I guess she didn't have enough money to cover all three of the balloons. And the cashier was like, why, honey? And she was like, you know, I don't have enough for it. It's my daughter's birthday. She can do two balloons. And the cashier was like, no, no, no, no. Put that back in there. And she pulled out her own, you know, $1.25 out of her pocket to pay for this lady's balloons. And I'm like, watching all this happen, I was like, dude, that's incredible. I mean, there's someone I assume they've never met. They didn't interact like they knew each other. But this is her neighbor. This is her neighborhood. And she wants to make sure some little girl has a good birthday.

So was sparing $1.25 a lot for the cashier? I don't know. Maybe not. But I bet it made a huge impact on that family, especially on that mom. That mom, like, started crying and gave her a hug, like, just to have another balloon. I was like, man, I'm still talking about it like a week later, thinking about how I interact with my neighbors. Am I ready to be generous? Am I ready to jump in when I see a need arise? Or am I distracted by candy, which is where I was that day. I got to experience it this week. We lost power for a couple days with some storms that rolled through. And I have four kids. My oldest two are only a year, like, almost exactly a year apart. And so we had a birthday party for them. And I really wanted to cancel. My husband was like, we're just going to rip it. They're going to play outside anyways. Let's do it. So we did that. And our AC was not working as a result of the power outage. Like, the internal motor went down, all of these things. And so during the party, one of our neighbors who was there with their two kids took their little girl back to their house to put her down for a nap before coming back. And he came back with a giant fan and a window AC unit. And we didn't ask them to do that. We didn't know that they had it. But they were just like, oh, we see this need that you have. And we have this from when a similar situation happened to us. We're just going to bring that to you today.

And it was it was really sweet, really generous neighbors being truly good neighbors, loving us as themselves. It was sweet. Yeah. And what I love about that example is it wasn't you doing it. It was you, like, having to receive, being loved as someone else loves their neighbor. I think that's that can be difficult. Right. Because like our pride comes in or whatever. I mean, I got it. You know, we'll just go buy an AC unit or we'll just, you know, it's not that hot, right? What do you think that is? Why do you think it's hard to receive love? I think a lot of our faith, at least the way that we're thought is the things that we have to do. You know, we have to be the ones giving. We have to be the ones serving. And those things are true. But I think sometimes in that. there's an aspect of we don't, one, we don't think that we can also receive or we can allow others to give and serve us, sometimes we might not consider ourselves worthy of also receiving good things. And I think that's a deeper challenge that many of us knowingly or not knowingly struggle with. It's like, I don't deserve good things. I don't like the thought of having to owe someone something. So I'm like, I will be self-sustaining and be able to provide for myself

because I don't wanna have to be like, oh, you did this nice thing for me. Well, now all this pressure on me to follow that up with something. And I love in verse eight, it says, oh, no one anything except to love each other. And sometimes to your point, to love someone loving you is just to like be thankful and like be, show gratitude towards that loving act towards you. And that's loving them. So, but that's hard for me to do because I always wanna feel like I gotta earn that back. And then I do that with God too. And when it's like, he loves me, I'm like, all right, what do I owe God now? And that's just not what love is. That's right. Yeah. You really jumped out to, I think this goes into what we're talking about. The very last verse of this chapter, verse 14. It says, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. I was getting dressed this morning and I was picking out a shirt that I like, I was picking out some pants, whatever. I don't know that phrase, put on, it made me think of clothes, right? And that we get the opportunity to be a little Jesus to everybody that we interact with today, right?

And like, how do we do that? Well, we love them as we love ourselves, right? Jesus would also kind of add to that. We love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. How do you think about, or do you think about being, putting on Jesus or kind of in the rush of the day to get out the door? At least for me, I say it's very easy to forget. What's your reaction to that? I struggle with, maybe not struggle is the word, as I have grown in my faith, I've wrestled with the aspect of trying, doing, putting on in this example. I mean, this is what Paul says. So there is truth there. But I've also seen lately as I've gained, maybe, I don't know, I find myself in places where I'm investing in others. And I hear, I just gotta be better, I gotta do better. I actually feel like we're missing out a lot when we are trying to be good, be patient, be loving, be kind. Because what Jesus offers us through the Holy Spirit is the transformation of our inner being and these things coming out of us. So instead of putting on, it is more, how can they come out? And it's not that I wake up every morning thinking, okay, how, like Jesus, how am I today going to be

all the fruits of the Spirit to other people? I probably should. But it is more, okay, how am I in tune with you? Am I representing you? So maybe that's a different way of putting on. I don't know fully what all Paul was trying to say, but that's certainly something that I think it's very helpful from a mindset perspective for us believers is like not trying to do these things, but inviting the Holy Spirit to get these things out of us. Yeah, it's kind of being obedient to the opportunities that you see in front of you, right? So like go back to that story at Dollar Tree, like seeing that reminded me, I don't know, you just get caught up in your own things and you're like, I gotta get the laundry done. Like I'm the only thing, I'm the only person in the world and this is the task that has to be done, right? And then you see that and you're like, oh yeah, other people live here with me, right? And the way that I treat them and the way that I speak to them really, really matters, right? And again, that happened over a week ago and I'm still kind of thinking about that. And there have been some opportunities in front of me that I think I've responded to well because I remembered the balloon lady at Dollar Tree. And it was seeing something about that shift to something in my spirit to go back to what you were saying and just like being more attuned to the people around me.

Right, you know? That's a prayer that I feel like I pray often in the mornings, maybe that's kind of how I would answer this question is I often am like, okay, God, I need your eyes today. I need your eyes today for your people, for the work ahead of me. And I often find that remembering the things that God's been faithful to or the ways that I've seen him move also is incredibly helpful in that because it anchors you in a place of being like, oh man, God has shown up in these ways before, whether it's for me or for other people or from his word. But just remembering who he is is always a good way for me to be able to walk. in that identity too as his daughter so that's something that I consciously do on my best days you know. Heck yeah and we're gonna borrow that from Caroline we're gonna do that so if you're not driving I want you to close your eyes for a minute if you are driving do not close your eyes but if you're not I want you to close your eyes for a second I'm gonna pray and then we're gonna open them okay so God to borrow from my friend Caroline we want to have your eyes today our eyes are shut please reset them so that when we open them we see people the way you see them so that we can love them the way that you love them so we can help spread your kingdom a little farther today wherever you take us it's your name we pray amen see you next time