All You Need Is Love. Really?

Is love really all we need? And, if so, can we actually do it? Can we actually create a world where everyone loves each other? With all the calls to just love one another, why haven’t we been able to realize it? Why is our world in such a mess?

All of us have a deep sense and longing for love - to love and be loved - as well we should, being created in the image of God, who is love. And we all wish everyone could get along and love each other. But it will never happen this side of Heaven. There’s something more we need.

The Sixties brought us the Summer of Love, when calls to love one another rang far and wide in the streets and on the airwaves. In 1967, The Beatles’ sang, All you need is love and the Youngbloods urged everyone to get together, try to love one another right now. The Age of Aquarius promised harmony and understanding. Just open up your heart, they said, and let the sunshine in. John Lennon wrote, Imagine all the people sharing all the world, living life in peace. And, Friend and Lover thought it was so groovy now that people are finally getting together. But did it work? Did we finally get together? Just look around and the answer is pretty obvious.

Don’t get me wrong, all the calls to love one another were very well meant. What a great notion to try to get everyone to live peacefully with one another. And Jesus himself calls us to love, saying, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments (Matthew 22:37-40). 

But is that really all we need? Is it really something we can achieve? I think not, and here’s why.

First - (READ: 1 Peter 2:21; Hebrews 4:15; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 3:20-24; Romans 5:8) - sin exists. Jesus wasn’t presuming any of us could fully keep the Law - he knew we couldn’t. Rather, he was pointing us to the Law as the standard of God’s perfection - the standard only he could keep and did - to show us our sin and need for forgiveness. If we were able to keep the Law completely, there would be no reason for his death to pay the price for our sin, and for his resurrection to give us hope for eternity. As Paul described, through the Law we become conscious of sin, it tells us what sin is. So we have to realize the limitation of our love because of our sin.

Second - (READ: Ephesians 6:12; Romans 12:9; 1 John 5:19; 2 Timothy 2:25-26) - evil exists. While Scripture shows that God did not create evil and does not promote it, evil clearly exists. And, as long as it does, we will never be able to achieve complete love and peace in this world. As long as Satan exists and is loose in the world, there will be people caught up in his lies and schemes, hellbent on disrupting things, satiated by his tempation. What we know, however, is that God limits the impact of evil, warns us of the dangers of evil, acts to stop the spread of evil, gives us an escape from evil, and will eventually defeat evil forever. We can’t just think evil doesn’t exist and that people aren’t out to do evil. We need to gently instruct them [see my blog: Our Duty: Help Others Find Salvation] in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil.

Third - (READ: John 3:19-21; 1 John 5:5-10; Romans 1:18-23) - people want to focus only on the loving character of God and ignore his justice. They pick and choose the portions of scripture they like - the love, mercy and forgiveness of God - and disregard the passages they don’t like, creating a version of God that suits their needs and appeases their desire to sin. Instead, we have to understand the limitations of our capacity to fully love, admit our sin, realize our need for forgiveness and accept the gift of redemption made possible by God’s grace through Jesus [see my blog: Five Reasons to Believe Jesus Rose From The Dead]. Only then can we most fully love.

Finally - (READ: 1 John 2:15-17) - it’s common today to hear the phrase, Love is love. That is, as long as whatever you’re doing is out of love, then it’s OK, that all love is right. But there’s a problem with that. John is saying there are certain things we should not love.

The word ‘world’, of course, can mean the cosmos - God’s creation - and, for sure, we should love and enjoy God’s creation. But there is another definition of ‘world’, and John clarifies it by defining it as the things of the world - specifically, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. These things we should not love. John points to two things here we have to keep in mind. First, the object of the love. That is, whether the object of the love is about the lust of the flesh and eyes, and the pride of life. Such things should not be loved. The object of love should fully be God - his commandments, character, love and mercy. Second is the source of the love. John says the wrong kind of love comes not from the Father, but from the world. So, while all love might be love, it is not all appropriate love.

So why is love not all we need and what is it that we need in addition to it? We have to acknowledge the limitations of love because of sin in the world and in ourselves, to humble ourselves before God, pray and seek his face, turn from our worldly ways and accept the gift of redemption made available through Jesus. Only then will we be able to fully love appropriately.