Obedience, Charity, and Ministering to One Another

Adapted from a lesson outline given October 30, 2022

Life is full of things that must be done in a certain order. Our bodies learn to digest milk before we are introduced to meat and other solid foods. We learn to walk before we can run. We have to plant before we can harvest. Elementary school precedes high school and high school precedes college.

The gospel is also constructed and learned "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little" (2 Nephi 28:30). As we learn gospel principles and implement them in our lives, the Lord tests our understanding and faithfulness to the principles we have learned (D&C 98:12). He also blesses us with greater knowledge and wisdom that can continue to grow "until the perfect day" (D&C 50:24) when we can have the life he now enjoys (Moses 1:39).

Elder David A. Bednar has taught:

This ongoing cycle of gaining spiritual knowledge ultimately produces a precious and delicious fruit, but that fruit cannot and does not grow from a blossom to its ripened state overnight. Furthermore, such fruit cannot grow in barren soil. Obedience to God’s commandments and our personal integrity and adherence to commitments provide the needed nutrients for fertile spiritual soil. It should be obvious to all of us that evil influences such as filthy language, immodest clothing and appearance, and pornography are bitter poisons that kill the soil and halt the spiritually subtle process of receiving help from heaven ‘line upon line, precept upon precept.’ There can be no shortcut around the law of the harvest; truly, we reap what we sow” (September 2010 New Era).

The Preparatory Gospel

Within the envelope of the gospel, there are two major phases to our learning and development. First we experience the "preparatory gospel". In this phase, we focus on learning obedience and receiving the blessings promised for our faithfulness. The preparatory gospel gives us checklists and formulas to guide our obedient lives, deal with perceived scarcity, and do our duty.

In the Aaronic or Preparatory Priesthood, for example, prayers for the sacrament and baptism are provided verbatim. The Law of Tithing is a preparatory law that prescribes an amount to give back to the Lord-- no more, no less-- and is often associated with specific blessings for our obedience. In Primary we learn formulas that help us know how to say a prayer and how to repent of our sins. The former Boy Scouts and Young Women Personal Progress programs outlined specific actions that, if completed, earned merit badges or medallions or other external recognitions that were indicative of our progress and development. Prior home and visiting teaching efforts were also somewhat scripted with a monthly message in the Ensign and a leader calling at the end of each month to see if you had made the visits you were assigned.

Elder Bednar has taught: "Obedience is the first law of heaven, the cornerstone upon which all righteousness and progression rest. It consists in compliance with divine law, in conformity to the mind and will of Deity, in complete subjection to God and his commands" (at BYU-I on January 6, 2004). Preparatory gospel principles create a firm foundation for our testimonies and our lives.

A Higher Law

Parallel to the preparatory gospel is a second phase of learning and development we might call the "higher law" or the "fullness of the gospel". The principles of the gospel in this phase build upon and are inseparably connected with those of the preparatory gospel, yet here our discipleship is no longer transactional. We still obey the commandments with all of our hearts, but we do so because we love the Lord more than we expect a blessing. We learn to give without expecting anything in return because we love God's children and want to bless their lives (see John 13:34-35).

In the higher law, we abandon the checklists and formulas that sometimes lead to unrighteous judgements of others or assumptions that only a few of God's children will be saved. In their place, we learn to follow promptings of the spirit and act on the circumstances of the moment. We come to know the abundance of the Lord: that He who multiplied the loaves and fishes has blessings and salvation for "all the works of his hands" (D&C 76:43) and He has asked us to return to Him in groups.

Just as obedience is the appropriate focus of the preparatory gospel, with 613 commandments in the Law of Moses to practice that obedience, the fullness of the gospel, the Law of Christ, highlights only two: to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40). When two holders of the Melchizedek Priesthood lay their hands on someone's head to give them a blessing, demonstrating this love for God and their fellow man, the spirit guides their words accordingly. We are all likewise called to practice loving others and following the resulting promptings of the spirit as we gather together at church and as families, minister to one another, set goals with our children and youth, and begin live the law of consecration with our time, talents, and resources.

Obedience and Love

God is the author of the preparatory gospel and its fullness. Jesus Christ provided a perfect example of how to incorporate both into our lives. His Atonement was the result of his obedience to God's commandments and his love for God and for us. As we follow the Savior's example of obedience, it will grow and expand the love we feel for our Heavenly Father. As that love grows, we will want to be more obedient and provide more service to others. The cycle we have then created of growing our love and obedience, each building upon the other, expands our capacity to love and obey; and so we progress by degrees until we have the perfect obedience and charity exemplified by our Savior.

President Benson affirms, "The breadth, depth, and height of this love of God extend into every facet of one's life. Why did God put the commandment [to love God] first? Because He knew that if we truly love Him we would want to keep all of His other commandments" (April 1988). As we begin to live the higher law of the gospel, it ceases to be something we do or our faith tradition or a part of our lives. It swells and grows to be a cornerstone of our very identity and natural to everything we think or do.

"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:24-26).

Charity: The Pure Love of Christ

The Apostle Paul taught:

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

Obedience is the foundation, but charity is the rest of the house. The Lord's plan for each of us includes a family that will teach us about His love for us. He instructs us to meet often to serve and teach one another. He invites us to minister to the needs of our neighbors and friends because we want to bless their lives. With every step, He invites us to put away the checklists, the judgement, the divisiveness and contention, and increase our focus on loving those we serve and expanding our desires to bless others.

"Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things" (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).

Fear is not the opposite of love, as is so often portrayed, but rather selfishness. We must learn to give of ourselves without expecting anything in return and to lose ourselves in the Lord's work of sharing His love with the world.

Conclusion: Ministering to One Another

The preparatory gospel teaches us principles of obedience. As we learn to follow the example of Jesus Christ and to love God, the Lord invites us to join with him in loving and serving His children.

One way we can serve with love is to minister to one another. Ministering is an exercise of charity as we learn to care for those we serve, as Jesus did, and seek to bless their lives without expecting anything in return. As he introduced ministering in April 2018, Elder Holland said:

“Brothers and sisters, we have a heaven-sent opportunity as an entire Church to demonstrate ‘pure religion … undefiled before God’—'to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light’ and to ‘comfort those that stand in need of comfort,’ to minister to the widows and the fatherless, the married and the single, the strong and the distraught, the downtrodden and the robust, the happy and the sad—in short, all of us, every one of us, because we all need to feel the warm hand of friendship and hear the firm declaration of faith… As [we do so,] we lift our spiritual eyes toward living the law of love more universally."

Most of us tend to bob and weave between preparatory principles and a higher law through any given day. All of our efforts work together for our profit and learning, but as we strive to love the Lord, to obey his commandments out of love, and to serve others with that same spirit of willingness and love, perhaps we stretch a little farther, enjoy fruit that is a little sweeter, and move a little faster toward the perfect day when we will be complete.

Love and Selfies

We live in the Age of the Selfie. We take pictures of ourselves with friends and landmarks, still in bed, at the gym, at restaurants and even in the bathroom. Social media sees our feet at the beach or by the pool, close ups of our eyes or the weird thing growing on our nose and what we look like with duck lips or too much makeup or after a rough day. Sometimes we even take selfies of ourselves taking selfies. Not even Woody can resist that. It's a phenomenon that can be a lot of fun, allows us to explore our identities, and helps us feel like we belong.

The Age of the Selfie is also part of a much larger movement that we could call the Age of the Self. We are more interested than ever in ourselves and "taking care of number one." There are certainly situations and individual circumstances where more attention to one's self is needed; but too often a preoccupation with ourselves leads us to poor decisions that hinder our progress and can even become destructive.

President Uchtdorf has taught:

Naturally, we all have a desire for recognition, and there is nothing wrong with relaxing and enjoying ourselves. But when seeking the 'gain and praise of the world' is a central part of our motivation, we will miss the redemptive and joyful experiences that come when we give generously of ourselves to the work of the Lord.

Ironically, and tragically, one kind of joyful experience we forfeit when we are preoccupied with ourselves is the opportunity to learn more about who we really are. President Hinckley has stated that "Nobody can live fully and happily who lives only unto himself or herself... It is as we serve, as we take the time to express interest and concern in someone other than ourselves, that we are more likely to gain a glimpse of who we really are and what we can ultimately become" (Standing for Something, 2000).

Christ taught that "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." In our own time, "one of the greatest challenges we face in our hurried, self-centered lives is to follow this counsel of the Master, to take the time and make the effort to care for others, to develop and exercise the one quality that would enable us to change the lives of others-- what the scriptures call charity" (Gordon B. Hinckley, Standing for Something, 2000).

When we are focused only on ourselves, we miss out on the joyful experience of giving and receiving real love and acceptance. President Uchtdorf expounded:

Those who wholeheartedly turn their lives over to our Savior and serve God and their fellowman discover a richness and fulness to life that the selfish or egotistic will never experience. The unselfish give of themselves. These may be small gifts of charity that have a grand impact for good: a smile, a handshake, a hug, time spent in listening, a soft word of encouragement, or a gesture of caring. All these acts of kindness can change hearts and lives. When we take advantage of the unlimited opportunities to love and serve our fellowmen, including our spouse and family, our capacity to love God and to serve others will greatly increase.

The opposite is also true: those who are preoccupied with their own image and pleasure find life increasingly void of meaning and their capacity to love God, themselves and others diminishes. Predictably, in most cases, these individuals will respond to the fading vibrancy of life with yet more selfish decisions in attempt to resuscitate their own feelings, further constricting their view and numbing their emotions with each unsatisfying Facebook post, workout, carbohydrate binge or illicit and loveless relationship. In seeking to save their own lives, they will lose it.

This appeared to be what was happening last week with a young teenager in my church congregation that decided to skip the final hour of church to sit on the couch in the lobby and play her tablet because it was more fun. As I sat on the couch across from her, more than a dozen separate individuals approached her and invited her to return to her class. They offered hugs and words of encouragement. They offered a listening ear and open hearts. Each time, the young woman would reject the love she was being shown and complained about those who had "wasted her time" and then also complained that nobody at church seemed to care about her. She could not see the outpouring of love that I had witnessed, even though she had been the intended recipient.

Compare that experience with the story Edith Cavell, a British nurse in World War I. She had trained in London before becoming the matron of a nursing school in Belgium in 1907 and launching that nation's first professional nursing journal in 1910. By the end of 1911, Edith was a training nurse for three hospitals, 24 schools and 13 kindergartens.

When war broke out in 1914, Edith's clinic and nursing school were taken over by the Red Cross and she began a relentless effort to treat the wounded. By November 1914, Germany had occupied Belgium. When asked why she treated the German soldiers as well as the British and French, Edith responded simply, "I can't stop while there are lives to be saved."

"Patriotism is not enough," she explained further on another occasion. "I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone." Edith began hiding Allied soldiers and helping them escape to the neutral Netherlands. She was arrested in August 1915 after one of the French soldiers betrayed her to the Germans. She had helped more than 200 soldiers escape occupied Belgium and now was sentenced to death by firing squad.

Edith's life of service to others had blessed her own life with a profound love for all people, including those with whom she disagreed. That love became her strength, despite her sentence, and blessed her life with profound peace. Among her last words was a request to the prison chaplain to, "tell my loved ones later on that my soul, as I believe, is safe, and that I am glad to die for my country."

Edith Cavell's love for mankind was deeper and more substantive than the excitement and infatuation that might motivate a couple to start dating or even get married. Those emotions are an important beginning-- the fairy tale leading to our happily ever after-- but they're often still about us and how we benefit from a relationship. True love-- the kind that satiates our need to belong and gives us the confidence and strength to face any obstacle-- is cultured over years of putting someone else's needs before our own.

A few days after I was married to my wonderful bride, we went to visit my grandparents in central Utah. My grandpa had performed the temple marriages of all of his grandchildren until a stroke had rendered him unable. My wedding was the first he was not able to attend. Now he laid in his bed in front of me, losing weight and a battle with dementia that sometimes made his home of more than 50 years seem completely foreign to his broken mind.

As I stood at his bedside and spoke with him I wasn't certain whether he remembered me. It was a mostly one-sided conversation as I told him about my studies at the university, how our favorite football teams were doing and my thoughts on politics, gardening, religion, and other topics that we had discussed often over the previous two decades. It was anguishing to see his once active body and keen professor's mind now reduced to staring at the ceiling and trying to make sense of the people and places that seemed to know him so well despite their unfamiliarity.

After talking for several minutes, I began to share with him that I had been married and introduced my wife who had been standing patiently by my side. At this news, my grandpa raised his left hand and proudly pointed with his thumb to the gold wedding ring on his finger. Whatever other chaos or darkness now clouded his memory, it was clear that he still cherished his wife of over 60 years. She had not been just a friend or the mother of his children or a part of his life; she had been his entire life, his reason for going to work and doing the dishes and singing the children to sleep. Now, in his difficult trial, it was his unrelenting love for her that carried him through.

Despite the stroke, the dementia, and failing physical health, Grandpa clung to life and love for more than five years until my grandma passed away in 2008. She had cared for him as best she could, even leaving the quiet country life of the only home she had really known to be closer to the care he needed in a Salt Lake City suburb. After her passing, Grandpa's remaining strength disappeared and he was soon laid to rest next to her and their son who had died of cancer decades earlier.

This is the power of true love. We cannot have it on our own-- not even for ourselves. Though the world tells us to skip or delay family for financial or professional gain, to abort children that may become a burden, to abandon marriages that no longer provide the benefits they once did, and to be constantly "one-upping" our friends and coworkers with the controlled facades of our lives on social media, the Lord through his prophets has taught us that to do so is to forfeit our identities and the love we so desperately need. Selfishness and love, by definition, cannot coexist; for love is the act of putting others needs before our own.

The ultimate act of love and unselfishness was the Atonement of Jesus Christ:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved (John 3:16-17).

This was not a fun or pleasurable experience. It was not the kind of self-glorifying or easy path we might choose for ourselves. Rather, it caused Christ, "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" (D&C 19:18).

The blessings of focusing our lives on others far outweigh the temporary benefits we receive from taking an easy path or doing what "feels good". We can have peace of conscience and confidence of belonging. We can experience the strength and power of love received and given to God, to others and to ourselves. We can have a knowledge of our own potential and the empowerment to achieve it. We can experience countless moments laughing, crying and experiencing the fullness of life.

We only need to take the time to serve those around us. And then, maybe to take a quick selfie with the smiling person who helped us love a little better than we had before.