“All we need is love!” “Love covers a multitude of sins.” “Love is the greatest.” “True love.” “God is love.” “Love one another.” “Love is kind.” “Love your enemies.” “Love makes the world go round.” “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
You recognize that most of those sayings are found in the Bible.
I suggest that over the past half century or so most churches and pulpits have moved to almost a sole emphasis on those phrases and others like them. That is, love – love – love – such is God’s sole call on a life. And by the church doing so, they set a theological basis for much of the liberalism we find in our country today. Such as… Love is the one and only guide for mankind. Love of all men in all situations and in all conditions is the sole mandate for pleasing God. That is:
love illegal immigrants – no borders
love the murderer or drug pusher – no capital punishment
love the homosexual or any person sexually active outside of a Biblical marriage
love those who steal (lie on tax returns) and cheat (vote illegally)
love those who refuse to work – give them freebees – even full health care
love those who lie and spew revolt – let them burn the flag
love those who promote darkness, blood, and evil (most movies, TV programming)
love those who take the life of babies in the womb
And if you don’t unconditionally receive everyone and give them much love, affirmation, and carte blanche acceptance, you are not loving, but rather cold hearted or heartless. If you don’t love – which they define as unfettered acceptance – you are not “Christian.” So taught and thought by many. Yes, love without limits is what many in our country now embrace (unless it is a love of God, Jesus, Constitution, history, or rule of law which are to be rejected as too restrictive).
And where did such thinking originate? In many churches and church schools! Over the years the pulpits of most mainline churches – rather than risk losing people by taking stands on divorce, immorality, and capital punishment or calling people to separation, loving God’s commandments and holiness or talking about sin, wrath, and Hell – focused their messages on love free of limits. And soon the politicians, conditioned by the pulpits of their churches, came to embrace the same message. That is, love others with little or no regard for laws – God’s laws (don’t work – don’t eat) or man’s laws (immigrants can only enter per the law).
The problem is that love, to have substance and value, must have limits or guiding principles. True love has a foundation and that foundation is God. Remember, God is love (I John 4:8). So, true love reflects God or is patterned after God. And what is there about God that would give parameters to love?
God is holy – righteous, – pure – perfect – sinless. There are things outside of His character.
God is just – He sees and deals with violations.
God is truth – thus there are lies and falsehoods.
God is angry – (John 3:36, Psalm 7:11) God is angry with the wicked every day!
God is love – meaning He wants the best – meaning some things are a NO!
True love is not open-ended, but has restraints. True love has limiting lines.
a PK Musing 
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