Love and Law

We need to be loving and respect the commandments of God.

https://youtu.be/SsrZ1XqwQlg

From the video of Dallin H. Oaks from Oct 2016:

As Latter-day Saints, many of us (not all of us) but many of us are inclined to insist on the law and do so in an unloving way. 

I receive many letters from people who are devastated at the choices being made by someone in their family. And they say, "What are we to do?" And the first thing I always suggest is keep loving them. In the end, that is something you can always do. 

We have to have in mind, the commandments of the Lord, which I'll refer to as the law and also the great commandment to love one another. And those will come into conflict when someone we associate with is not keeping the commandments or keeping the law. That makes is harder for us to associate with them and to love them. And yet if we love the individual, and at the same time, keep a tight hold on what we know to be our responsibilities to the law, it's possible to do so. 

We benefit by having people among us from different backgrounds. And the challenge of having people among us who bring a different point of view, a different background, different ways of thinking, different values to some extent, it's great. And it's a personal benefit for our progress. 

We should not start off our interaction with people who are making different choices than we desire, by arguing about their choices. It's better for us to start off talking about, "Where are you coming from? What are your basic values? What do you want to accomplish?" Then in that context, we can explain that we are concerned about the Lord's commandments. Because what's important to us is to stay on the path to Eternal Life. 

We are given commandments. When we obey those commandments, we are obedient. The consequence of being obedient to commandments is to put ourselves in harmony with the eternal law that permits us to grow and progress toward eternal life. 

The Savior commanded his followers to "love one another as I have loved you". So we look at how He loved us. He sacrificed himself for us. He was concerned always with the individual. He had a wonderful outreach for people. I think those are all indicators of how we can love one another like He loved us. If we make him our role model, we should always be trying to reach out to include everyone.

This video is featured on  https://mormonandgay.lds.org


"I will speak of restored, gospel truths that are fundamental to the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Please consider these truths carefully. They explain much about our doctrine and practices perhaps including some things not yet understood." (Sat Morning Session talk by Dallin H. Oaks,  6 Oct 2018, Timestamp 3:35)

"In this Church, what we know will always trump what we do not know. And remember, in this world, everyone is to walk by faith." (“Lord, I Believe”, Jeffrey R. Holland, Apr 2013)