Love One Another

Love One Another

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment."

From the moment that I learned this first commandment, I was slightly confused.  I knew God was not a selfish God who desired to be loved the MOST, but somehow I couldn’t understand why this was His first and GREATEST commandment.  It seemed to contradict the very nature of God.

It didn’t bother me much, but was just always an unresolved question in the back of my mind....

  “Why does God want love for Himself first and foremost?”

During a wonderful inspired discussion with my sister, the Holy Ghost bore witness to me the answer that I’d been searching for!  I was so excited to finally understand and be able to confirm that God truly is the most UNSELFISH Being to exist. 

I taught this new insight to my Young Women a couple weeks ago as we discussed the AMAZING talk by Elder W. Craig Zwick called “What were you thinking?”  The topic was about improving our communication and how to avoid having, as Paul warned, “…corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth…” Ephesians 4:29

How does communication relate to loving God?  Well, it is in fact, the KEY!

Imagine light flowing from God to us.   As we love him, we allow that light to penetrate into our very being.  Suddenly we can be gifted with spiritual gifts--directly from God.  We can be gifted with His feelings of patience, love, charity, understanding, knowledge, etc… 

In contrast, imagine someone who is having angry feelings of blame, bitterness, or unbelief directed at God.  Then imagine a very solid door closing, blocking all light from flowing into them.  Suddenly they loose all the light from God and the power it can bring into their lives.  This is when darkness can take over and Satan can fully reign.  Thoughts will become volatile and self-centered and pride can easily take over.   Joy, happiness, hope and gratitude all disappear in the darkness. 

So, God wants us to Love Him so that He can GIFT us all things spiritual, because He is the source of all spiritual gifts! 

How very UNselfish of Him!

Let’s take this one step further as we study the second commandment:

“And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” 

As we love God, we are gifted with His feelings and spiritual gifts.  Since He already loves us perfectly, this conduit for spiritual gifts is open and we can access this power, as we love Him and seek it.  

 We can then, in turn, reflect those wonderful gifts on others, AS WE LOVE THEM and they LOVE us!  That is a wonderful tool when it come to communicating with others.  

As God's feelings for them flow THROUGH us and TO them, we will see others through HIS eyes.  At that moment, we become instruments in His hands and we can understand them, what they have been through, and are going through.  We will have compassion on them because of their weaknesses.  We will be able to more effectively communicate because the spirit will be present to share, not just the words we say, but the LOVE we feel for them and the LOVE that God has for them.  

This will help us all become more like our... 

Father in Heaven
....day by day as we interact with others and reflect the beautiful 
EMOTIONS that God feels for all of his children.

So, this is all about sharing God’s gifts with all of humanity... 

                                                                                  .......and it centers around LOVE.

All we need to do is LOVE God with all of our hearts, and then LOVE each other better

Won’t the world be an amazing place as we do this?

I invite you to ponder and comment on these questions...

How can I love God better? 

What attributes do I need to learn about and seek to be able to love others better?

Elder Craig Zwick, “What were you thinking?”, April 2014
Elder Gene R Cook, Charity: Perfect and Everlasting Love July 2002