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.
All you need is love (all together now)
All you need is love (everybody)
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
1 Corinthians 13:1-7,13: 1If 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. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;[a] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
I had never read the lyrics of “All You Need Is Love” before. Kinda…not that comforting. It’s like saying that you can’t do anything to make you unique. Well, I suppose the saying is “you’re one in a million,” but there are many, many millions—billions—in the world. Which makes you just like all those other statistically ones in a million (which is a lot and isn’t comforting. Unless you feel like nobody understands. Then those ones in a million (which, in themselves, could be millions) feel just like you do, so you’re not alone there). The Beatles at least try to comfort, saying that all you need is love. That’s nice and everything, but I don’t know if they knew the real kind of love that is all you need—agape love. Now, “agape” means “God love” or something like that. It is the kind of love that God has for us! Which just happens to be the love talked about in 1 Corinthians 13.
Love. The word is mentioned 763 times in the NLT translation of the Bible. As Christians, we possess this love toward each other, because God first loved us. There are so many passages in the Bible which speak about love! God loved us so much that he sent his only son, so that whoever believes in him, will not die, but have eternal life! Now, I’m not trying to shut down the Beatles or their songs—but this is one sacrifice that can be sacrificed by no other! Because God loved us so much, we can love each other in agape love. What would be different, if all of us lived according to verses 4-7?
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
How would the world be different? How would our campuses or workplaces be different? How would our relationships be different? I can tell you only about as much as I know—they would be transformed by God and his steadfast love! Things would change for the better! Because—and the Beatles got this part right—all you really need is love!
Anna E. Meyer 