The Love of the Lord is the Law of the Lord

Have you ever wondered what it's like to be God? Have you ever considered that He gives us an opportunity to feel that way right here on Earth? 

     "When your first child is born, you become a father. The title father is sacred and eternal. It is significant that of all the titles of respect and honor and admiration that are given to Deity, He has asked us to address Him as Father. (the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, 'Father, Consider Your Ways')." And of course, mothers are given the same opportunity. Being a parent is the closest we can get to feeling what God feels. 

     Parents, like God, set rules and boundaries for their children. The rules are meant to protect children and keep them safe. Some parents experience rebellion from their children. The child sometimes demands to not get any punishment for rebelling, saying that they shouldn't be loved any less for 'choosing their own way'. But they do not understand that by disobeying them, they are breaking a link between them. It does not make the parents love their children any less, but it does not diminish the consequences for rebelling. In Elder Oaks talk, "Love and Law", he says, "The love of God does not supersede His laws and His commandments, and the effect of God’s laws and commandments does not diminish the purpose and effect of His love. The same should be true of parental love and rules.” The love of a parent and their rules that they set forth for their children are interconnected. They set rules forth because they love their kids. 

     “In his conference talk on tolerance and love, Elder Russell M. Nelson taught that “real love for the sinner may compel courageous confrontation—not acquiescence! Real love does not support self-destructing behavior.” (Elder Oaks)." Real love is someone who will not allow another human being to throw their life away. 

     I would like to use the example of my mother and father. I am living with them currently as a young married person. It is hard for me to live under their roof and still be "babied". My siblings have said that they hate calling mom because she just tells them what they are doing wrong and what they should be doing right. She "mothers" them. Well, it is difficult for our parents to stop being our parents. They have guided us our whole lives and all the sudden we ask for complete independence from them. But they are our parents. They will never stop giving us guidance. God will not cease to guide us either. He loves us so much that even though we may turn from Him, He will not desert us. 

    But God's commandments are not just to protect us and keep us safe. He wants us to live with Him again. And to be like Him-which means exactly that-to be like God. To be resurrected and Eternal beings. Elder Oaks said, “Joseph Smith taught that God “institute[d] laws whereby [the spirits that He would send into the world] could have a privilege to advance like himself.”⁵ God’s love is so perfect that He lovingly requires us to obey His commandments because He knows that only through obedience to His laws can we become perfect, as He is. For this reason, God’s anger and His wrath are not a contradiction of His love but an evidence of His love.”

     How do we know that God loves us? Because he chastises us! He pushes us to be better. In the scriptures, there are many times when the Lord chastens His people-His children. In Doctrine and Covenants 95:1, it says, " 1 Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you whom I love, and whom I love I also chasten that their sins may be forgiven, for with the chastisement I prepare a way for their deliverance in all things out of temptation, and I have loved you—" 

     A parent chastens a child because they do not know any better. Because they need to learn and to know that what they are doing is not right. God does the same. He needs us to repent for ourselves-for our own salvation is at stake. He is doing it for us because He loves us. As un-fun as being rebuked is, it is needful. We are imperfect and so sinning and mistaking is going to be inevitable. That is why God gave His very own son to redeem us. To forgive us and help us start over. 

     “Another Apostle wrote that God “spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all” (Romans 8:32). Think how it must have grieved our Heavenly Father to send His Son to endure incomprehensible suffering for our sins. That is the greatest evidence of His love for each of us! (Elder Oaks)."

     And once we grow up, we then undertake this role of father or mother. We have to teach, help, reprimand and love. It is what we were sent to do. Every human has a mother and father. What are the odds of that? It isn't odd at all-it is planned. “Whoever exercises priesthood authority should forget about their rights and concentrate on their responsibilities. The famous Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is quoted as saying, “It is time … to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.”¹⁰Latter-day Saints surely recognize that qualifying for exaltation is not a matter of asserting rights but a matter of fulfilling responsibilities.” Not only is is our duty to keep the commandments, but our responsibility to lead those after us and around us back to God.

     In closing, know that God lives. Know that He loves you. He does not oppress us but giving us rules, but gives us the opportunity to live with Him again. "The gospel is not weight, it is wings."