Our living sacrifice within society must also mean discharging our debts of all kinds to others. The only outstanding debt should be that to love one another, as this is always binding on us (v 8). Perhaps with reassuring the weak already in mind, Paul twice stresses that loving our neighbour is sufficient to keep all the commandments (vs 9,10). He insists that our duty in society is to ensure that no harm comes to a neighbour, using the same word translated ‘evil’ in Romans 13:3,4. If avoiding evil should mean we avoid punishment from the authorities, avoiding harming our neighbour should mean we’re contributing positively to the good of society around us. 

Commending Jesus through this kind of living sacrifice is significant: it means we’re standing against sins which destroy our lives, households and communities (vs 9,13). It’s also pressing in the sense that we need to be awake and rise to the challenges of the season we’re experiencing (v 11). 

That’s not to say, as Paul knew personally, that this is easy. Paul reminds us that we face a spiritual battle in which we have to choose decisively to live for Christ, armoured for the battle and clothed with his presence (vs 12,14)

‘As I have loved you, so you must love one another.’¹ What might obedience to Christ’s words mean for you today?

We are to live peaceably, submitting to the law of the land, but supreme for the Christian believer is to live in accordance with God’s rule of love (v 8). Yes, pay your debts in human society, but above all love one another as Christ taught his disciples. Paul’s quotation of the second part of the Ten Commandments appeals to his Jewish Christian listeners – love is ‘the  fulfilment of the law’ (v 10) – and also to Gentile disciples who know that Jesus spoke of loving God and neighbour as fulfilment of the law.² God’s law of love is pre-eminent, the guiding code of our lives, enabling the well-being of others and the honouring of God.

And the context for this living? The church in Rome had been living in a time of relative freedom. So often in human experience, such times bring complacency and ‘slumber’ (v 11), but Paul already sees that difficult times are ahead and he calls the church to wake up. Growing threats to our faith prompt us to think ahead to the coming fulfilment of our salvation in Christ (vs 11,12). Perhaps, like these early Christians, we also need to wake up. Our time left for serving God here on earth may be more limited than we had thought.

How then should we live? Paul uses his familiar images of ‘putting off’ our old selves and ‘putting on’ Christ (vs 12–14).³ He waves the flag of God’s love, encouraging us to take off ‘the deeds of darkness’ (vs 12,13) and take decisive action in Christ (v 14). We may be Christian leaders, but are there things in this list which we need to put aside (dissension? jealousy? ‘desires of the flesh’?)? Think of the person of Christ and his life on earth. How might we clothe ourselves in him (v 14)?

Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you with God’s love for others. Praise God for his love for you. 

¹ John 13:34  ² Matt 22:37–40  ³ Eg Eph 6:11,13; Col 3:5–10,12–14