All You Need Is Love

Remember that old Beatles song? It’s simple, universal, and resonates with us. Love hunger is universal. Though it is often confused with other things; in our current culture that is sex, we understand love when we experience it and we respond. Last week my one year old grand-daughter, Adelina, visited here. She knew that Grandpa loved her and when she woke up from her nap in my house, she was smiling and saying, “Papa.” Why? She wanted to be loved! When I visit the elderly who are confined to the nursing home and share genuine interest in who they are, they respond to love and anticipate that little crumb of human care. In pastoral counseling, I find that the first step to helping another find wholeness is simply offering them love. It’s absolutely amazing to see how men, women, teenagers, and little kids respond to the love of God.


Love says to another – “You matter. I see you, not just what you do, what you can contribute to my life, or how you perform. I care that you exist.” It’s really rather rare on this earth, isn’t it? We get pre-occupied with our work, caught up in making life work for ourselves, or absorbed by our own interests and forget to love. It’s not that we intentionally are hostile to others, but even benign neglect is unloving!

Jesus told us a love story we need to hear- over and over again. It’s recorded in Luke 15. A son went to his old Dad and asked for his inheritance early. What an idiot! The father handed it over and the young man headed to the bright lights. He lived it up with parties and prostitutes. When the money was gone, the ‘friends’ he had found disappeared. He found himself alone, afraid, and desperately hungry. He hatched a plan. "I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.” ’ “So he returned home to his father.” Part of his thinking was correct. He had deeply offended both God and Dad! He didn’t deserve a second chance. But what he had never really understood was the heart of his father. The story continues, “And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him." (Luke 15:18-20, NLT) Restoration, not probation! Forgiveness, not reparations!

Scandalous, isn’t it? Hard to understand and yet it tugs at us, doesn’t it? That’s because Jesus’ story is about you and me. When we took the gift of life and misused it, we broke God’s heart by chasing after things that could not make us whole or happy. Then, we were convinced that He was out to get us, that He needed to be bought with gifts or goodness. What He really wants is for us to ‘come home!’ Will our choices have consequences? Of course, but He’ll love us through it all.

John tells us that "This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother. This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another." (1 John 3:10-11, NIV)
"We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death." (1 John 3:14, NIV)
"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." (1 John 3:16, NIV)
"Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he loved us first." (1 John 4:18-19, NLT)

So, here are two questions:

Will you look up and accept the Love of God, not bargaining, nor buying, but receiving the gift?

Will you then become a lover of others, giving them the self-forgetting, forgiving gift that you have been given?

Here’s a word from the Word. Long before John Lennon thought it, God said it. “All you need is love.”
"If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." (1 Corinthians 13:1, NLT) "Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NLT)

"Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13, NLT)
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Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game -
It's easy.
There's nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time -
It's easy.

All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

There's nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be -
It's easy.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

Lennon/McCartney
Copyright 1967