Creflo Dollar - Are You Equipped to Pay The Debt of Love? - Part 1
We've been in the series on owing no man nothing but to love him and learning how to pay the debt of love. Let's begin there in Romans chapter 13, verses 7 through 8 in the NLT. Romans chapter 13, verses 7 and 8 in the NLT. And today I want to talk to you and ask the question: Can you afford to pay this debt of love? Are you equipped to pay this debt of love? What does it look like paying this debt of love? I mean, there's gotta be something to this because every time we saw the debt of love being paid, we saw some supernatural power being released.
We saw iron swimming with Elijah. We saw the oil with the woman who had her two sons, and the oil wouldn't stop until all the vessels were filled. We saw the tax for Peter and Jesus in the mouth of a fish. We saw a multitude being fed. And I know often people look at those great miracles, and they wonder: what is it that caused this to happen? And over the years, when we hear the Holy Spirit, we've fallen in love with power, and we forget that about the power, which is love. We have a love for power and not the power which is love. So today, I pray that your ears are anointed to hear. I believe that this will take you over into the supernatural. We are children of the supernatural. Praise God. Have mercy. And I thank God that we're gonna start walking in that.
So, let's get into this thing today. Verse 7 and 8, he says, "Give to everyone what you owe them," he says, of course, in the natural, "Pay your taxes and government fees. Pay those who collect them". He says, "Give respect and honor to those who are in authority," whether they're Democrat or Republican. He said, "Give respect or honor," you're not supposed to be fighting over that, "Give respect and honor to those who are in authority. Owe nothing to anyone," King James says, "Owe no man nothing," "Owe nothing to anyone, except for your obligation to love one another".
So when you pay all your debts off and you fulfill all your obligations financially and in the natural, there is a debt that you will never quite pay off. Well, you'll never, you'll never stop seeing and that is the obligation to every human being to love that person. And the Bible says, "If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of the law". So we should owe no man anything except love. Why? Because love shows the world who God is. That's the only way you can show the world who God is, not the fantasies, not the, you know, the circus acts, not how you sound when you pray. Love shows the world who God is, not how you preach, not how many scriptures you know. Love shows the world who God is, and verse 8 says something that oftentimes we skip over, but I wanna deal with this. Verse 8 says, "Loving one another has fulfilled the law".
The question I ask is in what way does love fulfill the law? Listen to this carefully. Where love is the things which the law forbids, where love is all the stuff the law says not to do where love is, all of the things that the law forbids won't occur. They don't occur when love is there. When you love your neighbor, you put the law out of work. When you love your neighbor, you put the law out of business, and that was his intent. His intent was you don't move into the New Testament trying to fulfill the law. What he says is do what I tell you to do and love one another. Pay that debt of love, and when you love your neighbor, you put the law out of work because there's nothing for the law to condemn. Oh my goodness. You can pay off your house. You can pay off your house loan, but you can never come to the point of saying I have loved enough. You will never come to the place in your life of being able to say I have loved enough.
And so here's what we wanna figure out today. And I love digging around in the scripture, like taking a toaster apart to see how it works. I want to take this thing apart today because supernatural love always produces supernatural results. Supernatural love always produces supernatural results. And I don't believe that we should be called children of the supernatural and never encounter any supernatural. But the key is in this subject right here. So, let's get into it. I wanna say this, and I don't want you to forget this. Somewhere, write it in your Bible that love is the power to be transformed. What love does... somebody says, "Well, what's the power of love"? Transformation. The power of love, it transforms. It transforms.
Now, I want you to pay attention to this because I believe this is the key to something. John chapter 13, verse 34 in the NLT. Let's read this. John 13:34. I wanna read it first, and then I wanna set up where we're going here today. Paying that debt of love. Can you afford to pay that debt of love? He says, "So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other". Now watch this very carefully: "Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other". So he is saying me being able to love you, me being able to pay this debt of love, is gonna be based on how I've received his love.
And I know a lot of people who don't believe that God loves them. And he is saying that you are not equipped to love anybody if you don't believe that God loves you, and this is what Satan is working on 24 hours a day: trying to convince you that God doesn't love you, and so if he can convince you not to believe that God loves you, you're gonna have a difficult time paying the debt of love to somebody else. Because it's gonna be difficult for you to love somebody else when you don't even believe that God loves you. So the issue is if you don't believe that God loves you, then how can you pay the debt of love to others? And that is a daily attack. It is a daily attack in the life of the Christian. Satan wants to convince you God does not love you like you heard, and you will pause and hesitate on paying the debt of love because you're not quite sure that God loves you. And we need to settle this today.
Go with me to the Book of 1 John in the King James, 1 John chapter 4 and 19. Let's read a couple of scriptures, 1 John chapter 4 and 19. Oh my goodness. I mean literally 42 years and I know the exact location of the power. Yeah, somebody say it's the Holy Ghost! Now the Holy Ghost, the first ministry of the Holy Ghost was love. The first thing he did when he came into you was pour love into your life. That's the first ministry of the Holy Ghost. I told you I saw you out there laying hands on the sick and seeing them recover. But it wasn't the hunger for attention that moved you to do that. You saw a person in their need, and you had to respond with the power you knew about on the inside of you. 1 John 4:19 says this: "We love him, because he first loved us".
Now, here's another issue. We can't even love God until we settle the issue that he loves us. You hear people going around talking about, "Oh, how much I love God. How much..." Until you settle the issue that God loves me, you won't even be able to love him because we love him because he first loved us. But if you don't believe the love that he has for you, you're not even gonna know how to love him, more or less love your neighbor. So the issue is coming down to how much do you believe that God loves you? And I mean you gotta believe he loved you when you up, when you down. You gotta believe he loves you when you're doing good, when you messed up. You gotta believe he loves you when you in doing good behavior or bad behavior.
When you just messed up, missed the mark, slid into sin, you still got to believe God love you. You gotta get right out of the sin and say, "He still love me, devil". There's something about this. And then we move to 1 John chapter 4 and 11. And y'all know how I like laying these foundations, man. When you build a... you gotta build a big house. You gotta build a big foundation, man. Look at this. 1 John 4 and 11, back up there. He says, "Beloved," now don't forget that word because that's the word the enemy is trying to change. He's trying to take that from you. "Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another".
You see it again. If you are doubting God loves you, then your ability to pay the debt of love to others will be greatly hindered. And I love the way he started this. He's saying, "I'm calling you beloved. I'm calling you beloved. That is not going to change. I'm calling you beloved. The day you got born again, you were accepted into the beloved. I'm calling you beloved, and I'm not saying you have to qualify to be beloved. When you accepted me, you qualified. I accepted you when you accepted me, and I accepted you into my beloved, and no devil in hell can change that". He can try to convince you to change that. Why? He doesn't want this debt to be paid, this debt of love to be paid. Beloved.
Now, let's look at Ephesians chapter 1, is everybody with me? I wanna make sure I don't go too fast. Ephesians chapter 1, verses 5 through 6 in the King James. Ephesians 1:5 through 6 in the King James. Lord, Lord, Lord. Speak out of my mouth today, Jesus. "Having predestinated," so this is something he did before you got here, "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of his children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will," he said this is what pleases me, so I'm gonna do it, "To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved," he made us accept it in the beloved. You didn't qualify to be accepted. You didn't win some race to be accepted. It wasn't because you were now good enough to be accepted. You were predestined to be accepted. He made his mind up to accept you as his beloved before you accepted him. You're his beloved.
When you was out there raising hell, trying to be cool, acting like a fool, he had already before you were born on the Earth made his mind up because it pleased him that he was gonna accept you into his beloved before you even got here. And you was acting crazy, and everybody thought ain't no way in the world this boy going to get to heaven. And one day God Almighty showed up, and he showed up with so much goodness you started changing your mind about God, changing your mind about church, changing your mind about the Bible. Next thing you know, you on your knees, forgot how you got there, and you accepted him, and he had already accepted you. You are his beloved. Say that out loud: I am his beloved.
So God wants us to know that we are deeply and greatly loved. We are God's beloved, which means that you are the one loved by God. Say out loud: I am the one loved by God. I'll never forget this testimony I heard. Well, this gentleman who used to work in a insane asylum and the people were, they were gone. I mean, they were, you know, they were expected to be there for the rest of their lives, and he was instructed by God just, I mean, the counseling sessions were nothing. I mean, they just didn't hear anything. He was instructed by God to just bring them in one by one, and he just started singing, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so". And then one go out, another one come in. He's singing, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me," and that's all he did.
And then something very supernatural started happening. What was never supposed to recover, and all of these patients start recovering. Lord help me, Jesus. And so, one day, one of the first patients came in, and he started singing, "Jesus loves me, this I know". And they said, "For the Bible tells me so". Every one of those patients who were never supposed to be discharged, got healed, delivered, and discharged into a normal life, and all he did was sing "Jesus Loves Me" until they started saying, "Jesus loves me". And the power of love released supernatural power to deliver them out of something that the world had condemned them to.
There is power in our midst that we have been ignoring, and today, I want to bring your attention to the greatest and most powerful thing of all times. We've heard about it. We've heard sermons about it, and we've sang songs about it, but it is the love of the Almighty God. Amen? The supernatural will be released for those who will realize that they are God's beloved. The supernatural will be released for those who realize that they are God's beloved. Are you listening to what I'm saying to you? That just by realizing that you are God's beloved, the supernatural is going to be released.
Now, the supernatural is not some circus act. It's God on your natural situations, turning it around. Oh. It's God super on your natural and stuff that's not supposed to naturally happen happens. Glory be to God. It could be something so small as "I don't know what to do in the natural" and then the supernatural gets on you, and not only do you know what to do, but you know five different ways of how to do it. Y'all don't hear me. That's what's getting ready to get on you! That's what's getting ready to get on your house! That's what's getting ready! The more you sense God's love for you, the more you'll notice good things happening in your life. The more you sense God's love for you, the more you begin to notice good things happening in your life.
How many of you want to see some good things happening in your life? I believe that you will enjoy the blessing of God when you realize how much you are loved by God. Look at this! And with most folks, this is too small. We busy, we busy talking about the fifth dimension of the anointing and the third dimension of prayer. It don't take all of that! I'm saying to you believe the love that God has for you. Okay. Ephesians 3:14 and 20 through 21 in NLT. Ephesians 3:14 through 21. You know I'm just, I'm hammering this in. That's all you gonna.. you ain't gonna be thinking about nothing today about except how much God love you. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Yeah. There's something getting ready. Something getting ready. Something happening to you right now. Something's permeating in your soul right now. Glory to God.
And you having some flashbacks. You're like, I know God loved me because look at what, look at what happened here, and look at what didn't happen here. And look at what's supposed to happen here. Look what God stopped here and... anything good that's ever happened in your life came from God! Hallelujah! It wasn't by your works. It wasn't by your manipulation of circumstances and situations. All good and perfect gift comes from the Father which is above. So you can go back and count the blessing! Count the goodness! That was God trying to get you to recognize: You are my beloved! I love you! Praise God.
Watch this now. 14 through 21, he says, "When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and I pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources," you can't tap God out. You can't tap God out. God is love, and you can't tap him out. "I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you, he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit". All right. So the Holy Spirit, you know what he came to do. "Then Christ will make his home in your hearts..." I don't think you understand. See, God is love. Holy Spirit poured love in your heart. Then love came and decided to make his home in your heart. You got supernatural love all on the inside of you, right?
"Then Christ will make his home in your heart as you trust him," see, there it is. I got to trust that, see. He says, "Your roots now will grow down into God's love, and in God's love, rooted in his love, he'll keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, and how long, and how high, and how deep is his love". Oh, glory to God. "May you experience," now, this is the thing that we lack. We wanna goo goo, ga ga with this love. We wanna have an emotional kind of time with this love.
But he says, "May you experience the love of Christ," see, I'm talking about what's getting ready to happen, what's getting ready to come up next. You want to know what's next on the prophetic schedule? I ain't talking about all the doom and gloom and when the Antichrist coming and when the Rapture coming. No, no. Here's what's next gonna happen: an experience of God's love. You're about to experience this love that's so high and so deep and so wide, and you're getting rooted in this love. And the devil wants to stop your roots from getting in this love. Because if your roots get into this love, there will be an experience that will come from being in this love.