Nobody Owes You Anything

Romans 13:8 says, "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another."

I want you to see what's in that verse.
God told you what you owe, which is love, and He left out the part where you collect.
He never said what you're owed, because in Him you were never owed a thing.

So nobody owes you anything.
Period.
I'm not talking about wages or fair pay, because a man who works gets his check.
I'm talking about the heart that keeps score.

Your flesh won't like that, and it'll argue with you right now.
"After everything I did for that person?"
"I stood in that line for forty minutes."
"I dragged myself in tired and not one soul said thank you."

You know that voice.
It keeps a ledger and writes in it all day long, and I'll tell you where it learned that habit.
It learned it in a courtroom, so that's where we'll start.

The Courtroom Is Closed

Romans 3:24 says we're "justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."
Freely.
Nothing in you paid for it, and nothing in you could have.

Romans 4:5 says God "justifieth the ungodly."
He didn't wait for you to clean up first.
He declared you righteous while you were still the kind of person who needed it.

Now, that isn't God pretending.
Romans 4:25 says Jesus "was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification."
The cross handled the sin, and the resurrection is God stamping the account paid in full.
Second Corinthians 5:21 says He was made sin for us "that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."
Your sin went to Him, and His righteousness came to you.

Romans 5:1 says we have peace with God, and a man at peace with God has no business going to war over a seat on an airplane.

When Romans 8:33 asks who can lay anything to the charge of God's elect, the answer is "It is God that justifieth."
The Judge closed your case, so what standing do you have to open one against the person who forgot to thank you?

Why You Keep Collecting

Picture the older brother in Luke 15.
He never left home, and he worked that field every day while his brother was off spending the inheritance.
When the party started, he stood outside and said, "Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid."

He lived in the father's house and thought like a hired hand.
He figured his work had built an account and the father was behind on payments.
And look at what he asked for.
He didn't ask for the father, he asked for a goat, and everything he was working for already belonged to him.

That's where most of us live on a bad day.
You do a favor and it turns into an invoice.
You get tired and it turns into a claim.
You sit through a long airport delay and out comes something church never gets to see.
Anybody who believes he earned his place will believe people owe him for it.

Watch his words, too.
He said "this thy son," refusing to call him brother, and the father answered with "this thy brother."
Once you start collecting, somebody in the family ends up outside.

Then the father said, "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine."

More Than a Verdict

A lot of believers stop at the verdict.
They know they were pardoned, and they've never met the One who did the pardoning, who lives on the inside.

Galatians 2:20 says, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."
Ephesians 1:6 says you're "accepted in the beloved."
In Him, not standing near Him and not trying to get on His good side.
God declared you righteous because He put you in the Righteous One, so the hunger to have people confirm you was answered before anybody at church ever shook your hand.

Sharing His Life

Let's go where the early church fathers went, because they saw something we've nearly lost.

Second Peter 1:4 says we're made "partakers of the divine nature."
Athanasius taught that the Son of God became what we are so we could share in what He is, and the fathers called that theosis.
Don't let the word scare you.
It doesn't mean you become God in His essence.
It means His life becomes your life and His love moves through you.

Jesus prayed in John 17:22, "And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one."

So what's His nature?
First John 4:8 says, "God is love," and that kind of love gives without waiting on a return.
He gave His Son while we were still sinners, and not one of us has paid Him back.
Luke 6:35 says to do good and lend, hoping for nothing again, and you'll be "the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil."
When you quit expecting payment, that isn't you getting holy.
That's the family resemblance showing up.

Sanctified Without Keeping Score

Hebrews 10:14 says, "For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified."
You were set apart once, completely, in Christ, and that same life keeps working itself out in your everyday walk.
So you're not climbing a ladder to make God owe you a better season.
You're letting Him live, and the scorecard falls away on its own.

Walking Into Church

Bring all this to Sunday morning.
Most of us walk through those doors hoping to be loved, when we ought to be walking in to love.
We hope somebody greets us and notices the new haircut and remembers what we gave last month, and some of us have waited years for a thank you over the nursery shifts and are still waiting.
When it doesn't come, we leave offended and call it discernment.

You were loved before you parked the car.
The Father settled that at the cross.
So walk in full.
Find the person sitting alone, the one nobody's talking to.
Shake the hand nobody reached for.
Hand out the kindness you came hoping to get.

Try This Week

Next time you do somebody a favor, do it and let it go.
If the thank you comes, take it as a gift, and if it doesn't, you've lost nothing, since you weren't lending in the first place.

When the airport or the traffic or the line tests you, tell yourself, "Nobody owes me a smooth day," and be kind to the person behind the counter.
They've probably had a worse morning than you.

When you're tired and you serve anyway, and the dishes are still in the sink and nobody has said a word of thanks, remember Who's doing the serving through you.
Your tired body was never the supply.
He is.

Then say it out loud: "The Judge declared me righteous, the Son lives in me, and the Father gave me everything."

Nobody owes you anything, friend.
You already have everything in Christ.

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