It is stronger by far than any law that any government will ever pass. Nobody will violate it, because everybody knows how a human being can be crushed by it. It just crushes the spirit. This is the way things are in the Kingdom of this Earth. And Jesus says,

"Jesus when he summed up the whole law said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul and strength and then love your neighbor, even real little ones. Love them the way you love yourself. And he says, I`ll help you do that all the time, my love is always available to you. The Psalmist says: The earth is filled with your love, O LORD; teach me your decrees. ''Psalm 119:64'' Everywhere I go, everywhere I turn, every room, every created piece of the universe, is an expression of God`s love; and it`s always there, it`s always available to me. Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. ''Romans 13:8'' Paul, here, is using kind of a financial metaphor to talk about love. He says to let every interaction in your life be governed by the law of love. It`s kind of an odd thing about us, we get very good at tracking finances in our life. In the newspaper everyday I read about how financial stuff is going. How your portfolio is doing. We`re not so good at tracking love.

There is not a section in the newspaper that tells how love is going. When you go to an automated teller machine and insert a card you always have two basic options, and they are that you can make a deposit or make a withdrawal. How important is it to know the difference between a deposit and a withdrawal" Very important because when I make a deposit I am adding value. I`m building up reserves. Relationally and spiritually in God`s eyes, when I make a deposit in a life of a person then I am honoring love. In God`s eyes, a deposit is always honoring love. Might feel pleasant and joyful to that person, it might not. There might be a sting to it, but I am honoring the law of love. Withdrawal, on the other hand, is when I take away value - when I take value out, when the reserves go down. A withdrawal is always the violation of love. Withdrawal is always a violation of love. It might feel good to the other person.

It might involve flattery or something, but really what is happening is I`m violating the law of love. There is a third thing you can do. You can ask to check your balance. That is a good thing to do. Smart people do that because you might think you have a pretty good guess as to what your balance is, but if there is a difference between what you think your balance is and what the bank thinks your balance is, who wins" Bank always wins. Every relationship has kind of a running balance. Good or bad, big or small, red ink of black ink. Just as surely as you have a balance in your financial accounts, it is true in your relational life spiritually. That is why Paul writes: Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. ''Romans 12:10'' In other words, don`t try to get more out of a relationship than what it is that you are putting into it because if the balance is high - good things happen in a relationship and if the balance is high, you can confront somebody when they need it and they will probably trust you.

If the balance is high you can express affection to somebody and they will probably receive those words because they believe it`s true. If the balance is high, when there is conflict it will probably get resolved because the other person will give you the benefit of the doubt. If the balance is low, all those dynamics run the other way. So wise people know what the balance is in our relationship. It is remarkable to me how often people, who are really smart in other areas of their lives, are not so smart in this one. There was an article awhile ago about people in the workplace. It said there is a very consistent finding. Do you think bosses, people with power, do you think bosses tend to overestimate or underestimate how happy the people are who work underneath them" Overestimate, very consistently. This is a constant danger in relationships. Paul writes, and this is a text usually taught on Father`s Day, Paul writes: Fathers, do not exasperate your children... ''Ephesians 6:4'' Now, why does Paul address this to fathers but not to mothers" Is it because men are more exasperating and irritating and have a bigger jerk factor than women do" No, I thought this would be a rather simple question. The correct answer would be No.

It is because in that culture men were basically the ones who hold the power and Paul knows how relationships work. He knows that people who have power in relationships will often be quite clueless about what the balance is. This is why when you go through the New Testament, when Jesus is teaching on relationships, consistently he teaches that those who have the greatest power must be the greatest servants. Wherever power is in operation, love has to be stronger than power or else power will do damage. This is why anytime you make your heart Christ`s home, He will always lead you or me into servanthood. He always does. When I don`t know what the balance is then the relationship is at risk.

We`ve all heard stories about this. One spouse comes home and says to the other one, "I`m done, I`ve had it, I`m finished, I`m through." The other spouse didn`t have a clue. They didn`t even see it coming. They had no idea. So I want to do an exercise for a moment right now. I would like to invite you to take out a pen or pencil and a piece of paper. Real quick. We track how things are going in a lot of other areas of our lives including finances. A lot of times people never do it in their relational lives. I want to give you an opportunity to do that right now. I would like to invite you to think about a couple of key relationships in your life. If you have children, you might want to write down just your kids` names on the side of this paper. Or, maybe it`s your mom. Or, maybe a couple of friends. Or, maybe a spouse. Then, next to their name or just their initial, if you want to keep it private or a number or something, next to that, on a scale of 0 to 100, just write down what do you think that person would say is the balance in your relational account these days" Zero to a hundred. Zero being real low, a hundred being real high.

Think about how much joy is there in our relationship. How much time do we spend together. How does affection get expressed" Are there any resentments or dings that have not been resolved" We do this financially, we get statements all the time. We expect it. It is amazing to me how often people don`t do this in relationships. So, right now, just next to the key relationships in your life, just write down, scale of 0 to 100, where do things stand" Maybe you`ll look at the number and say, God, thanks for giving me such a life giving relationship. Maybe you`ll look at it and say, Jesus, I need you to come into this relationship with me, into this room with me. Because, every interaction you have with another person, part of what`s going on is you`re making a little deposit or you`re making a little withdrawal. It goes on in our world all the time. That is why Paul writes words like these: This is from his letter to the church at Colossi. These words are so rich, let`s read them out loud together. Therefore, . . . clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other . . . ''Colossians 3:12''

There are no neutral interactions between people. In any encounter with human beings, including our children, we are never just exchanging information. Something is always going on spiritually. I am always either honoring love, making a deposit in you, or violating love. We all know this and this is why if you know there is somebody you are going to be with at a party or in their office, there are some people you think, I can`t wait to be with this person. I look forward to that. Then there are other people where you start planning your exit strategy even before you go into their office. This is going on in relationships all the time. Let`s talk about what this looks like for a moment. When you make a deposit into somebody`s heart and soul or somebody does that to you, what kind of actions, what kind of words of behavior does that involve" I am just going to ask you to just shout a few things out and I`ll write a few things down. What are things that count as a deposit in your relationship with other people" Time Affirmation Words of Encouragement ''somebody said'' A smile Serving somebody ''probably a Mom who said that'' Listen is huge Trust Those are all deposits.

Now, the withdrawal side. What are things that when someone does them to you that you can feel you`re losing a little life" It`s a withdrawal in a relationship. What constitutes a withdrawal" Critical or critical spirit - you can watch a kid wilt under that. Impatience Argument Unforgiving, an unforgiving spirit Anger It`s interesting that on the Sermon on the Mount, how quickly Jesus gets to anger when he is talking about life in the kingdom because when it is mismanaged it is so lethal. Anything else" Gossip Lack of compassion I`m going to stop there because I`m running out of room. But, again, this is going on all the time. A lot of times we don`t think about this. A lot of times all we think about is the content of whatever it is that we`re expressing. But, always, in every encounter between two human beings it is a spiritual encounter. And God wants to be making deposits in your heart and in your soul all the time because you and I cannot give what we don`t have. And where the whole love thing starts and every human relationship where it really always starts is in the God relationship. So much of what the Bible is about is God`s trying to convince the human race the kind of love that he wants to give it, how much God loves you and me. A lot of the pictures are pictures of the love a mom has for her child. Jesus says, you know, the way a mother hen longs to gather her chicks in, I`m going to gather you that way.

Rodney Starr, a professor of Sociology at the University of Washington, has written a book called The Rise of Christianity. He calculated how it is that Christianity spread in the Roman Empire at the rate of about 40% per decade. In the year 40 AD, a few years after Jesus died, there were roughly 5,000 Christians in the world.

That looks pretty insignificant and negligible. That was .0075% of the population of the Roman Empire. Then it starts to spread and keeps going until by 350 AD there are about 33,000,000, or 56% of the Roman Empire, who named the name of Jesus. How did that happen" The Roman Empire was collapsing, yet this movement of Jesus just kept spreading.

Partly it happened because people throughout that part of the world had never heard a message like this one before. One of our problems today is that the Gospel has been a part of our world and our culture. Even in people who donþt believe it, it colors everything. It has been woven into our lives for so long that we take it for granted, and we forget what a world apart from that message would look like.