Obligations

What obligations do we have to the person or people who have invested in us? They may tell us what we need to do or we might invent something but what is the real obligation?

No one needs a false burden. Life is hard enough.

"Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law." - Romans 13:7-8 ESV

"Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor." - Romans 12:9-10 ESV

The best gift we can give any person is liberty. Our love becomes an investment in helping a person become a loving individual.

We honor those who have loved us. We do that by letting love shape us. The Holy Spirit must lead us in anything 'beyond' that. The highest, and only, true obligation is obedience to God. That doesn't mean we pull passages out of the old testament given to Israel and say they apply to us. Jesus has already fulfilled that law and we are given the righteousness of that fulfilment as a free gift.

If someone loved us but taught us something that was wrong we honor the investment but not the incorrect principle. If someone loved us and taught us something eternal and right and good we are wise if we teach that to others as we love them because it is eternal, right and profitable.

Wrong principles usually have bondage attached to them.

"Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, 'Where I am going you cannot come.' A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another." - John 13:33-34 ESV

When Jesus knew His time was short He cut His disciples loose. He didn't make them declare oaths of allegiance. The freedom He gave them wasn't aimless. It was liberty.

"He said to them, 'It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.' And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.' " - Acts 1:7-11 ESV

I love this. It is like the angels are saying, 'He set you free. Go. Be free.' yet at the same time, Jesus gave them a place where power could be received without bondage. If we are at God's house at the right time we will receive power in our liberty. We could be at 'the end of the Earth' and still have a place to get power from God. Small rooms become 'upper rooms' when people are gathered and the book is opened. Jesus is revealed.

Those disciples that He set free became Apostles.

Hey, The people we invest in may forget about us. It isn't ideal. It isn't honorable but did they become loving people? If so, It was all worth it.

I want to honor those who have loved me. I see it as an obligation because it honors God. Even more than that I want to love people because I have been reconnected to love again and again far beyond what I could ever deserve. God loved me when I was his enemy. Now, I can love the unlovely also because His Spirit is in me moving me to love beyond my present capacity. He constrains me in this love.

I'm praying God breaks all of our false bondages and sets us free to love as He intended. I'm also praying we all find a place of power to gather and be renewed in objective truth. That place will preserve our freedom and send us out with seed that will grow up and become a vehicle to break every bondage a man or woman can find themselves in.

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