P.D. Laws
Roy 24th Ward Sacrament Meeting Address 28 Jan 2001
How do you define love?
How do you grab a bar of wet soap in the shower?
Getting your hands around the subject of love is like trying to catch the wind.
Love is an emotion.
Love is a state of mind.
Love can be a state of body.
A state of being.
It can be expressed or repressed.
It is compulsive and sometimes obsessive.
It can kill or heal
Love is a phase of the heart.
It can be warm, cold, tough, or even puppy. Sensual, sexual, public, or private.
Love has 1,001 permutations.
Usually not served a la Carte, it is much better buffet-style.
You can think you are in it, but be light-years from it.
Love can be judgmental, although it shouldn't be conditional.
It should be preferential, although all-to-often our love compasses don't point to the direct-route to happiness
Love is not loud, boastful, brash, or demanding.
It is patient, kind, and long-suffering but not in an "un-cool" way.
Love is everything!
You will die without it, and do anything for it.
Love is something we all must learn how to do, and do well and right in order to be truly happy and fulfilled as human beings.
Love is open to free interpretation.
Let me illustrate with a brief list of things I love and don't love.
Things I Love… | Things I Don't Love… |
The skin of fried chicken… | Chicken Liver… |
Jumping out of anything that flies… | Horse Flies… |
Fast Computers… | My Pentium 120… |
Ketchup… | Tomatoes… |
Being Right… | Always Being Right… |
Flannel Sheets… | The First 20 Seconds… |
Myself… | Others More… |
Breathing Underwater… | Getting Out of the Water… |
Pork & Beans… | Lima Beans… |
Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream | Chocolate Ice Cream |
Being on Time… | Being Behind Someone Slow… |
College Football… | Professional Football… |
Our New President… | Our Old President… |
A Good Clean Joke… | The Fact that so Few Exist… |
Honesty… | Compromise… |
Becky's Home-made Wheat Bread | Store-bought White Bread |
A Box of Chocolates… | Having to Bite them all to Find a Good one… |
As I related my personal preferences I'm sure there were many other opinions among those of you that are here today. We are all different people! We represent different genders, ethnic and social backgrounds, and even different lifestyles. Each of us has been blessed or cursed (just kidding) with a certain personality and a whole bag of propensities about life. We all have a view, a take, an opinion.
Opinions are a truly universal part of life; everyone has them! Whose opinion truly matters? Is there a chief opinion-aire?
What and where is the common denominator?
What IS truly important? And why?
Will any of the things I have listed as my loves save me from sin and death- the two truly awful forces in our universe?
The answer is NO!
Let me give you another list of loves and not loves:
Things I Love… | Things I Don't Love |
My Heavenly Father and Savior | Satan and his followers |
His Commandments and Prophets | The Teachings and Philosophies of Man |
Myself as One of His Choice Sons | When I Forget My Divine Heritage |
My Personal Covenants With Him | When I don't fulfill My Promises |
My Wife and Family | The Thought of Being Without Them |
Lehi taught his sons that: "Men are that they might have joy" (2 Nephi 2:25).
Joseph Smith further illuminated this concept with this statement:
"Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God" (Smith 255-56).
Of all of the loves that we must pursue in life; of all of the things that we chase after with our hearts and heads, I believe there are at least 5 loves that we must understand and demonstrate in order to be saved in our Father's Kingdom:
They are:
- Love of the Godhead for Man (the greatest love story ever told)
- Love of Man for God
- Love of Man and Wife
- Love of Family
- Love of all Mankind
- Love of the Godhead for Man (the greatest love story ever told)
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
John 15:13
For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent;
But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I;
Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit--and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink--
Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.
Wherefore, I command you again to repent, lest I humble you with my almighty power; and that you confess your sins, lest you suffer these punishments of which I have spoken…
D&C 19: 16-20
What more can be said than this! Our Heavenly Father condescended to allow His only perfect son; His best and most righteous son to suffer the weight and responsibility for the sins of all mankind. He looked on as evil men colluded in an awful plan to wrongfully accuse and crucify the first among all of His favorite sons. Then he allowed the humiliation of interrogations, scourgings, the open scorn and ridicule of the creator of the very earth upon which they stood. I know of no greater love than that. No love that is of greater worth or enduring value. No love that redeems so perfectly and completely every spirit that take up flesh on this and other worlds.
- Love of Man for God
In Ancient times a lawyer tried to accuse the Savior with this question:
Master, which [is] the great commandment in the law?
Jesus said unto him, 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.
And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Matthew 22: 36-40
We are required by our Heavenly Father to love him in order to gain Celestial Exaltation because it is only through love that we will value His program and commandments enough to do all that is commanded of us. In a simplified manner, almost to a circumstance, earthly parents require certain things of their children because they believe/know ultimately what will lead to the most happiness for the child. They know these things not through some magical power that parents possess, but because they are more experienced in the matters they are attempting to teach the child. Just as children are generally well served to heed to earthly parental guidance so to are we all infinitely better off to heed to our Heavenly Father!! Religion i.e. the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ is the tool with which eternal promises and eternal Life are realized and made possible. We must be knowledgeable of its doctrines!
Joseph Fielding McConkie has written:
…how does one gain such a knowledge? How do we come to know that we are on course, that our lives are in order and thus approved of the heavens? The members of the School of the Prophets were taught-and this is one of the transcendent verities of the Restoration-that we must be willing to sacrifice all things for the gospel cause. If we would become inheritors of all that the Father has, we must be willing to give up all that we have. With us, it must be the kingdom of God or nothing. We must be willing to yield our hearts unto God (see Helaman 3:35), have an eye single to his glory (see D&C 88:67), and be willing to surrender to the Captain of our souls. Like the father of Lamoni, we must be willing to give up all we possess, forsake our individual kingdoms, and give away all our sins to know God (see Alma 22:15, 18). "Let us here observe," the Prophet declared, "that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation" (Lectures on Faith 6:7). Only a church that will ask everything of its members-everything!-is in a position to promise its members the riches of eternity. Total surrender is always prerequisite to total victory. Only those who reach the point in their spiritual development where they are at last able and willing to fully consecrate themselves to the Lord and his church and kingdom and to do so without hindrance can gain that confidence before God of which the scriptures speak (see D&C 121:45), a confidence that results in the promise of eternal life.
3. Love of Man and Wife
We know that the Scriptures say "man cannot live by bread alone". It is also a verity that a man cannot make it into the royal courts of the Father without a woman at his side. And not just any woman! The woman at his side is a daughter of God! She is one of God's grandest achievements. She is pure and holy and without guile. She is the mother of his children. She is the Queen to his King. She has made sacred covenants in His holy house along side of her husband, that bind them together throughout all eternity!
In my opinion the love of a righteous man & woman is one of the crowning jewels of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
With this bright future in store what husband would ridicule or demean his spouse? What husband would have two faces, one for public consumption and one within the walls or bedrooms of his home?
What husband would fail to treat his wife now like what she will be then?
I answer: Only a fool!
Only a man who has lost sight of what he has within his grasp if he will but reach for it. It is all too common (and sad) to see sealed couples treating each other as if there really were no tomorrow or that eternity will never come! The possibilities are so great!
President Spencer W. Kimball has said:
Happiness in marriage requires continued effort. Two people coming from different backgrounds soon learn after the ceremony is performed that stark reality must be faced. There is no longer a life of fantasy or of make-believe; we must come out of the clouds and put our feet firmly on the earth. Responsibility must be assumed and new duties must be accepted. Some personal freedoms must be relinquished and many adjustments, unselfish adjustments, must be made.
One comes to realize very soon after the marriage that the spouse has weaknesses not previously revealed nor discovered. The virtues which were constantly magnified during courtship now grow relatively smaller, and the weaknesses which seemed so small and insignificant during courtship now grow to sizeable proportions. The hour has come for understanding hearts, for self-appraisal, and for good common sense, reasoning, and planning. The habits of years now show themselves; the spouse may be stingy or prodigal, lazy or industrious, devout or irreligious, may be kind and cooperative or petulant and cross, demanding or giving, egotistical or self-effacing. The in-law problem comes closer into focus and the relationships of the spouses to them are again magnified.
- Love of Family
We get to choose many things in this life, to include Baskin Robbins "thirty-wonderful" flavors, BUT we don't get to choose our families or the members thereof. We can't "return" a family member to the "point-of-sale" because we don't like their performance or the weird noises they make (see 4-year-old). We are placed together for a reason. Our mission in life is to discover every wonderful aspect of the divine spirit of every member of our family! When we can't agree, we need to seek peaceful, constructive means to resolve our differences. The mortal testing that we each are taking part of has some of its most trying tests within the walls of our homes. Listen to the Lord's words concerning contention:
29 For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another.
3 Nephi 11:Verse 30
30 Behold, this is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of men with anger, one against another; but this is my doctrine, that such things should be done away.
Contention has no place in our homes
And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Matthew 22
5. Love of all Mankind
We are commanded to love others. What's more, we are commanded to love others as we love ourselves. For most of us self-love is a deep and abiding love that knows no limits! We would do well to do "unto the least of these my brethren" (
Matt 25:40)
1 John 4:15-21:
15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.
16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
19 We love him, because he first loved us.
20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.
D&C 121:Verse 45-46
Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.
The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever.
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