Oct 23

Romans 13:8-10
8 Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law.
9 For the commandments say, “You must not commit adultery. You must not murder. You must not steal. You must not covet.” These—and other such commandments—are summed up in this one commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
10 Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law.

In the mood to amaze your friends and astound your family? Well, then, try this simple (but cool) trick: 1. Choose a number-any number. 2. Double it. 3. Add twelve to that number. 4. Divide your new number by two, then subtract your original number. 5. Now add one. What answer did you come up with? Seven, right? If you followed the instructions at every step, your answer will be seven. It will always be seven. Whether you start with 1 or 500 million, you'll always come out with the number seven. Always. Every time. That's how the problem is designed. You can't miss as long as you do the math right. Go ahead, try it with another number! Other than being a fun way to dazzle your friends with your intellect, what's the point? Well, it's this: You can do almost the same thing with God's commands. But you don't have to remember five steps, just one. Here it is. Ready? 1. Love others. There. That's it! If you always do the loving thing, you will automatically do the right thing. The Bible says, "If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill all the requirements of God's law" (Romans 13:. That's because you can't love someone else and steal from him at the same time. You can't lovingly murder someone (no matter what you may see on daytime talk shows!). You can't love someone and cheat him. The right choice can become a lot clearer if you always remember to love others. If you do that, you will "fulfill all the requirements of God's law." And you don't even have to worry about getting the math right!

REFLECT: Name all the steps it takes to obey every commandment. (Sorry. That was a trick question. There's only one step remember it?) How does love fulfill God's law? Whom do you love? Whom do you not love? Can you obey God without acting in love toward someone? Why or why not?

ACT: Try the math puzzle with your friends, and use it to remind yourself that loving others fulfills all of God's other commandments.

PRAY: "God, thanks for making it simple, so I only have to remember one thing if I want to obey your commands. Please show me how to do the loving thing today when I'm with..."

The verses for today's reading gave me the feeling that I needed to talk about the spirit of Giving and Charity. Stuff like that. Love branches off into many different emotions towards different people and different reactions. I think as Christians, we should be the ones that are initiating this in the new relationships that we build. Taking into account the sermon this week, we have to see people from a blank slate, and have a positive attitude to sharing this love of God with others. We hear alot of "I don't need God's love" coming from atheists and stuff like that, but the thing is, I think God's love is something that's the foundation of all love, and if not the same, it's better.

So you know...share the things. Share the love, along with charity and the holy spirit.

Right, so this is pretty easy to understand. Love one another.
But it's definitely easier said than done.
If you've been wronged by someone, it's that much harder to love them but that's what we're told to do.
Love.
I suppose you could get angry and upset at someone, and still love someone (e.g parents, etc)..

So let me correct myself. The love we're supposed to show one another isn't just any love. It's agape (unconditional) love. That's what we're supposed to be having for one another.

All I really got from this devo, is that as long as you show love towards others, you are also showing other qualities such as patience, peacefulness, kindness, etc.
I'm sorry this is such a short and lame devo...I seem to be very unfocused lately

i have heard this message A LOT in my entire life even from people that aren't Christians. love your neighbours. this reminds me of the retreat we had and what Pastor Kye said about how the horizontal love amongst our fellow brothers and sisters of Christ, and our vertical love to God makes up the cross. our neighbours are our brothers and sisters though they may not look like you, may not act like you, may not like you, etc. you can't do anything about that because no matter how much we might want to deny it, we are all brothers and sisters of Christ. it can't be ignored and of course it IS easier said then done, but connecting back to what the sermon on sunday was about was to see the good in people. see the good in your neighbours and you will learn to love them. pray for them, think about them, and be friendly to them. just something small like that can be a huge step to one of the most important commandments we are given as Christians; love our neighbours as we love our God. remember that those two are equally important and that is why Jesus specifically put those two as one commandment.

Some of us may try really hard to follow the commandents but the thing is there is only ONE MAIN one. Loev your neighbors. As it indicates in the short story, we only have to love our neighbors and this will lead us to follow the other commandments as well.

I remember Dan Kim's sermon where he said that we only have to follow the first two commandments to follow the rest of them. One God and Love your neighbors. And this is true because if you have one God and only God, you will follow the first 4 commandments and when you Love your neighbors you will follow the rest. if you love somebody, would you kill them? steal frmo them? Probably not because you care for them and dont wanna hurt em. We should all love one another and we are able to follow the commandments

What i got from this was that one commandment stands our above the rest.
"love others"
its the commandment of love your neighbours.
God said this is the only commandment you need... and you are doing everything right.
Although it is only one step, it is probably one of the most difficult tasks to keep in life. We should try and no matter how many times you fail do love others... family, friends, enemies... never give up because even trying is a step closer to the one thing God wants.
10 Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law.
There is no harm done when you love others... they dont even have to know. You just need to fulfil Gods most commandment...

As sins are viewed the same, but still have that level of sin, I feel as if that's the exact same with the commandments.
They ARE all the same, they do all shape us like Jesus.
But love is the main factor, the epicentre of our relationship with Christ, commandments, and towards being just like Jesus.
In my opinion, I think trust definitely goes hand in hand with love.
I feel as if once I trust someone, I begin to love them.
vice versa as well.
I didn't always trust God, but when I began to understand him more and more, my trust has been on Him.
And I've realized that the love came directly afterwards.

The important point here is loving others, and I know full well that I do not love nearly as much as I should. Loving isn't just keeping peace or suppressing anger or whatnot, but it is actually going to the point where you can feel compassion for everybody. Peace isn't enough to meet the criteria God gave us with his command, but love is the ultimate goal. And we don't love others because we are loved back, but we love because we are loved by God. No other reason is needed to love. If we can love freely and unconditionally, we are then able to keep Gods commandment, and eventually love God back. So just love freely.

9 For the commandments say, “You must not commit adultery. You must not murder. You must not steal. You must not covet.” These—and other such commandments—are summed up in this one commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
10 Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law.

Mmm pastor Kye's sermon!
Since you guys mentioned it. I'll just focus on another thing!
Love does no wrong to others.. It never hurts to love. So why not spread it?
Loving everyone else as much as we love ourselves, fulfills EVERY law there is.
IF we love everyone as much as we love ourselves, we wouldn't steal from them, lie to them, or do anythting wrong to them
Would we ever steal from ourself? Would we ever murder ourselves?
Of course not.. hahaha
Loving others is such a difficult thing. Being able to stand someone is something, but genuinely loving them is another
But loving others the way we do ourselves will bring us true happiness. Where we can fulfill God's desires with him smiling down on us.