All You Need is Love
Scripture: 1 John 4:7-21
While I confess to be a love teacher, I am often puzzled by the way Christians speak about love as though it is the easier way. It is as though they might try following some rules, but that would be too hard, so they’ll try love instead.
But a love that is an easier way is not very likely real love. Love is something that is easy to sing about, to proclaim, to discuss, to affirm, or even to pretend. But not everything that is called love is truly love.
The fact is that Christian love is much more difficult than legalism. Legalism has different effects on different people, but I think one can generally suggest two major categories. There is a group of people who are discouraged by legalistic requirements and thus driven away. They don’t understand the requirements, they find them too difficult to fulfill, and so they lose out in the end. But there is an opposite group, those who find legalistic requirements very comforting because you can check off all the proper boxes and then know you’ve made it. These folks are glad for tithing not because it tells them how much they must give, but because that becomes the limit. For them, tithing allows them to say, “I already gave my tithe to the church budget. Don’t solicit me for money for a special project.”
But love is not an easier way. It is, to quote Paul, a “more excellent” way. If you combine 1 Corinthians 13 with our passage for today, I believe you’ll see what I mean. Paul tells us of the demanding nature of love, one that “endures all things.” John, on the other hand, lets us know that we can’t get by with a proclamation of love for God, who is conveniently not visible, whilst ignoring our neighbors. Our love has to be active.
We don’t get to proclaim that our feeling for God, our love for God, is sufficient, whilst ignoring his children here. What we do to our brothers and sisters will tell how much we actually love God.
“Endures all things” sounds so much better regarding God than it does regarding my immediate neighbor. My neighbor might make real, visible demands that others know about. They’ll know whether I responded.
John isn’t speaking about an easy way out. He’s speaking about a higher demand than we find anywhere else!