Today I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting. When I was first assigned the topic "the love of God" 10 days ago, I never would have predicted the direction the talk would take once I began compiling quotes and information. Here it is (mostly). . .
When I was approached about speaking today, I was told
“The theme for the month of February is The Love of God”. I was bit overwhelmed by the breadth of this
topic and I wasn’t sure if it meant our love for God or His love
for us. So I just did a search of the
phrase “Love of God” at LDS.org. Most of this talk is based on conference
addresses by Presidents Benson, Monson and Uchtdorf. I found as I perused the many different
results that came up in my search, one basic idea has been repeated by many
voices over the millennia. Here is a small sampling; I wonder if you notice the
same thing I did. . .
Joshua22:5 “But take diligent heed to do the commandment
and the law, which Moses the servant of the Lord charged you, to love the Lord
your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to
cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.”
1 John 5: 3 “For this is
the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not
grievous.”
1 Nephi 11:25 “And
it came to pass that I beheld that the rod of iron, which my father had seen,
was the word of God, which led to the fountain of living waters, or to the tree
of life; which waters are a representation of the love of God; and I also
beheld that the tree of life was a representation of the love of God.”
Jacob 7:23 And it came
to pass that peace and the love of God was restored again among the people; and
they searched the scriptures, and hearkened no more to the words of this wicked
man.
What did you notice about these
scriptures? The common thread I noticed throughout them is the love of God and
His commandments are inextricably linked. This connection is even more apparent
in Matthew, Mark, Deuteronomy, Luke, Moroni and Doctrine & Covenants 59 where
we find- “This, then, is the first and great commandment: “Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,
and with all thy strength,” When six different sources tell us the same thing,
maybe it’s important for us to pay attention.
Ezra Taft Benson asked- Why did God put the
first commandment first?” Then President Benson answers; “Because He knew that
if we truly loved Him we would want to keep all of His other commandments.”
The scriptures and our prophets keep
reminding us-if we love God, we need only follow His commandments-–easy peasy,
right!?! After all, we just read in John
that “His commandments are not grievous.”
Now, ask yourself three questions, first, “Why?”
“Why love God or why follow the commandments?” The second
question is “How do we love the Lord thy God with all our hearts, and
with all our souls, and with all our minds, and with all our strength”. The third,
“If we do love God, why is it still so difficult for us to follow the commandments
sometimes?”
The first question, “Why” has a very easy
answer. Ready for it. . . “…for the
Bible tells me so. . .” and it tells me over
and over and over again as we discovered a minute ago. . .
President Benson said “When we put God first,
all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives. Our
love of the Lord will govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our
time, the interests we pursue, and the order of our priorities. . . . To love
God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength is all-consuming and
all-encompassing. It is no lukewarm endeavor. It is total commitment of our
very being—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—to a love of the
Lord. ‘
President Uchtdorf comes at it from a slightly
different perspective; he says “. . . God does not need us to
love Him. But oh, how we need to love God! For what we love determines
what we seek. What we seek determines what we think
and do. What we
think and do determines who we are—and who we will become.” President Uchtdorf goes on to say “He
offers to His children the promise of a glorious and infinite existence and has
provided a way for us to progress in knowledge and glory until we receive a
fulness of joy. He has promised us all that He has. If all that is not enough reason to love our
Heavenly Father, perhaps we can learn from the words of the Apostle John, who
said, “We love him, because he first loved us.””
Just most of us have “house
rules” in an effort to keep our loved ones safe and happy. Heavenly Father has
His own “house rules” for us. We just call God’s house rules the commandments. I know the pain it can cause me when I watch
one of my children make a choice counter to the house rules that leads them to
some difficulty. I can’t even fathom the pain I have caused my Heavenly Father
with some of my own less-than stellar decisions.
President Monson tells us “Our Heavenly
Father loves us enough to say: Thou shalt not lie; thou shalt
not steal; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself; and so on.2 We know the commandments. He understands
that when we keep the commandments, our lives will be happier, more fulfilling,
and less complicated. Our challenges and problems will be easier to bear, and
we will receive His promised blessings.”
As to the second question, “How do we
love the Lord thy God with all our hearts, and with all our souls, and with all
our minds, and with all our strength”
The simple answer is “Follow the
commandments”. We have been told that love is a verb, or an action word. What
action do you suppose would illustrate our genuine love for our Heavenly
Father?
The more complex answer has many facets, and
they might even be different for each one of us.
One facet of our love of God may be keeping
Heavenly Father foremost in our minds. I personally find if I am not actively
engaged in something, it goes to the back burner for awhile. Eventually it may
even be totally forgotten about. I feel the love of God can be the same way. As
an example, if I put off scripture study, prayer or even meeting attendance once
or twice, it can then become a day or two, eventually that turns into a week or
two and the next thing I know they are no longer a part of either my routine or
my life. After that, I may find myself on the slippery slope to nowhere. Nothing
may appear to be important to me anymore and the commandments may eventually become
merely suggestions. My illustration may seem overly dramatic, but we have all
seen examples of this very thing happening to someone we love or have at least
associated with at some point.
I have also noticed that even when I am doing
the right things like daily prayer and scripture study, though I haven’t
forgotten God completely, there have been a few times I have forgotten my
blessings originated. Apparently, I am not alone in this.
President Eyring has said “… forgetting God has been . . . a
persistent problem among His children since the world began. Think of the times
of Moses, when God provided manna and in
miraculous and visible ways led and protected His children. Still, the prophet
warned the people who had been so blessed, as prophets always have warned and
always will: “Take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou
forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy
heart all the days of thy life ‘. He goes on to say “My point is to urge you to
find ways to recognize and remember God’s kindness. It will build our
testimonies. You may not keep a journal. You may not share whatever record you
keep with those you love and serve. But you and they will be blessed as you
remember what the Lord has done. You remember that song we sometimes sing:
“Count your many blessings; name them one by one, And it will surprise you what
the Lord has done.”
I personally see gratitude as another
important facet of love. If one focuses on the positive, it is much easier to
want to draw closer to and stay engaged with them rather than pulling away from
them.
On this subject President
Uchtdorf says “We increase our love for our Heavenly Father and demonstrate
that love by aligning our thoughts and actions with God’s word. His pure love
directs and encourages us to become more pure and holy. It inspires us to walk
in righteousness—not out of fear or obligation but out of an earnest desire to
become even more like Him because we love Him. . . Love is the fire that warms
our lives with unparalleled joy and divine hope. The divine love of God turns
ordinary acts into extraordinary service. Divine love is the motive that
transports simple words into sacred scripture. Divine love is the factor that
transforms reluctant compliance with God’s commandments into blessed dedication
and consecration. … Love should be our walk and our talk. Love is the way of the disciple…”
One more key facet of love is a feeling of
connectedness. For me, it is important to feel connected with God if I am to
truly love him. President Uchtdorf also reminds
us of the many ways we can get to know God, connect with Him, and hear his
voice in our lives. He suggests-
·
“As you
reach out to your Heavenly Father, as you pray to Him in the name of Christ, He
will answer you. He speaks to us everywhere.
·
As you read
God’s word recorded in the scriptures, listen for His voice.
·
During . . .
general conference and later as you study the words . . . , listen for His
voice.
·
As you visit
the temple and attend Church meetings, listen for His voice.
·
Listen for the voice of the Father in the bounties and beauties of
nature, in the gentle whisperings of the Spirit.”-My personal favorite way to feel God's love.
Often rules are seen as restrictive or confining, not allowing us to do what we think we want to. The natural man in us wants to “push back” when we feel like we are being kept from doing our own bidding.
President Monson reminds us “God’s
commandments are not given to frustrate us or to become obstacles to our
happiness. Just the opposite is true. He who created us and who loves us
perfectly knows just how we need to live our lives in order to obtain the
greatest happiness possible. He has provided us with guidelines which, if we
follow them, will see us safely through this often treacherous mortal journey.
We remember the words of the familiar hymn: “Keep the commandments! In this
there is safety; in this there is peace.”
We can have lots of excuses, and maybe we
have even rationalized a few of those excuses into valid reasons that we choose
not to follow the commandments. Maybe we just don’t have a clear understanding
of what is required. Through misunderstanding or just a simple lack of
information we may inadvertently break the commandments. Maybe we even have
family traditions that we would never have even considered as being counter to
one of God’s commands. As our
understanding deepens and grows, or we gain new knowledge, we need to adjust
our actions to bring us in line with God’s direction.
What
about peer pressure? Just a heads up here for the youth; peer pressure never
really goes away. Even old folks want to fit in, to be appreciated, and to be
loved.
A spoken word broadcast in 1970
points out “. . .there seems to be a compulsion to follow the crowd. As
evidence of this, consider the compulsion when it comes to following fashion. .
. There are bad examples as well as good ones, and we have to discriminate
between the two. But there is something formidable called crowd psychology,
when many seem to move compulsively, not necessarily having thought things
through. And one of the urgent lessons to learn is that a wrong isn’t right
just because many do it. A wrong isn’t right just because a crowd does it. And
no member of a crowd is relieved of personal responsibility when he does with others
what he wouldn’t do himself. A crowd is composed of individuals, and basically
its acts are the acts of individuals. And before a boy or a girl (or an adult)
does something he shouldn’t, takes something he shouldn’t, uses something he
shouldn’t, behaves as he shouldn’t, in a crowd or with other company, he ought
to pause and ask himself honestly: “Would I do this if I were alone, if I were
thinking my own thoughts, and considering the consequences, without the
compulsion of other people?” We are, all of us, going to carry our own record
with us, our own memories, our own responsibility, whether we act in a crowd or
as an individual. Abraham Lincoln had something to say on this subject: “Stand
with anybody that stands right,” he said. “Stand with him while he is right, and part
with him when he goes wrong.””
Another very real threat to our willingness to follow the
commandments is Satan. He knows just
what we will be tempted by the most. If
that doesn’t work he will try again or maybe even find something else with
which to test our resolve. Sometimes we are falsely led to the idea it would be
easier to take a short-cut. How many of those so-called short-cuts actually
turn into the long way around in the end? What about pride? Do we think we are
too mature or cool or smart to follow the rules? Satan has so many snares and
false paths for us to follow I couldn’t possibly list them all here; nor would
I want to.
Now I have spent almost 20 minutes expounding on “the love of
God’. Really it boils down to a very
simple couple of sentences- If you love God you will keep his commandments, the
first one being to love God. God loves you so he has given you commandments to
keep you safe and help guide you safely back to Him.
At the beginning of
this talk I mentioned I wasn’t sure if the topic phrase meant our love
for God or His love for us. I
have found in my “boiled down version” that the love of God goes two ways. The love of God is BOTH our love of God AND
the love of God towards us.
I leave this with you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen
Most of the quotes came from:
The Love of God
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