On June 25, 1967, over 400 million people in 26 countries watched, via satellite, as the Beatles performed the song, “All You Need Is Love”. The Beatles had been asked to come up with a simple song that could be understood by all the nations. So, they gave us these words:
All you need is love. All you need is love.
All you need is love, love. Love is all you need.
While the sentiment of the song is very close to the truth, their premise was wrong. What we really need is the God of love. We can never truly love unless we know the God that is love. To be precise, what we really need is Jesus, who was sent by the God of love! We don’t simply need to be connected to love, but connected to Christ, the source and example of love. Then, and only then, can real, supernatural love flow like a river from Him and out of us to others.
In the book of I John, we clearly see that one of the tests of our faith has everything to do with love. In fact, John tells us that if we don’t have love for others, then we certainly haven’t experienced the love of God in our own lives . . . but when we do . . . love explodes to those around us.