As I spoke, she leaned against the lamp post, attentively listening. She was present from start to finish and so heard the message in its entirety. As I offered the free Gospel tract at the conclusion she came up to take it from my hand. Engie introduced herself and thanked me. She told me she was from Argentina. She spoke fluent English. She was, I would guess, in her mid twenties. She was kind and soft spoken. “It’s all about love isn’t it; all we need is to love. If we love we will be fine. Do you agree?

In the Gospel ministry, I have learned that I have to think fast. I meet people who are complete strangers and I have to process their comments and try to figure out the context. My first urge was tell this gal, “No, love is not enough. We are sinners who need to repent and trust the Son of God.” But in a moment I realized that she was absolutely correct. Love was sufficient, it was truly all sufficient!

I said, “Engie that is what the Bible is all about. In fact, when the Lord Jesus was asked which the greatest commandment was in God’s law, He responded: ‘You shall love the Lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”’ (Matthew 22:37-40) Jesus plainly states that love is all we need.

I asked Engie if she loved God perfectly, continuously with her every thought, with every fiber of her being and if she loved every human with perfect love. She honestly admitted she did not.

Biblically, God calls us to love Him perfectly. That perfect love is expressed by thankful obedience to the first four of the Ten Commandments and He calls us to perfectly love one another. That is expressed in perfect adherence to the last six of the Decalogue. Only One has exhibited that kind of love, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only man who never earned the wages of sin, i.e. death. He loved His heavenly Father perfectly and every human with whom He came in touch. Yet, the sinless Son of God took on sin at the cross and died as a substitute sacrifice for sinners. “For our sake he (God the Father) made him (the Lord Jesus) to be sin (Christ) who knew no sin, so that in him (the Lord Jesus) we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

That my friend is love, real love, perfect love. We think of love, speak of love, we aspire to our ideas and ideals of love but we can’t begin to know true love until we come to the cross. When we see Love Incarnate we realize how far short we fall in our love of God and neighbor and how in our deficiency we desperately need Christ alone as our Redeemer. Nobody has ever loved like the Lord Jesus Christ. Once we really know Him as our Lord and Master, only then can we begin to appreciate, enjoy, receive and demonstrate true love. (John 3:16; Romans 5:6-8; 1 John 3:16; Galatians 5:22,23)