We can’t keep the second great commandment without honoring the first great commandment, allow me to explain. After a divisive tragedy one need not search very hard to find a plea for the world to have more harmony, more peace, and to love one another. A quick scroll through Twitter, Facebook, or a social media comment section will reveal these pleadings. Indeed, why can’t we just love one another? Why is it so difficult to have this love for strangers and those we don’t know? If we had this sort love, then many of the world’s wrongs would be righted. Unfortunately, those who are most vocal about this pursuit are either ignorant to the true path that would allow this love to flow, or they are the very saboteurs who impede this flow of love from being poured out into all human hearts. This brief reflection addresses why we can’t love one another and what must be done to enable this powerful love to fill our hearts.
The philosophers of our day (meaning singers, performers, media personalities, and other artists), have successfully implemented simple slogans into our lives about love. Phrases like “all you need is love,” “love trumps hate,” “love makes the world go ‘round,” etc., are held as universal truths about love. In some senses they are correct, however, they often conceal the great depth behind the phrases that make them true. The kind of love that accomplishes great feats and changes the world is not an erotic love, it is not a romantic love, it is not a brotherly love, or even familial love – it is God’s love. God’s love is a love powerful enough to repel threats against our peace and harmony in life.
We learn this in scriptures (John 3:16 is perhaps the most well-known). The scriptures also teach us and command us to have this love for everyone around us. Most people have heard the scriptural teaching of “love thy neighbor as thyself,” found both in the Old and New Testaments (Leviticus 19:18 and Matthew 22:39). This is precisely what seems to be missing; a love for our fellow neighbor – those who are not us, not like us; different.
So how can we possess this love, and have it fill our hearts; both individually and collectively? First, we must acknowledge that this teaching comes from Judeo-Christian values. Governments and societies in moral bankruptcy did not teach us this. This is not some innate thing that spontaneously grows in our minds and hearts. It is something that God directed us toward as a goal, and something only He can give.
This idea about love comes from what Jesus Christ refers to as the “second [great] commandment” (Matthew 22:36-39). Here is a thought exercise, can you name the first great commandment? With all this focus on the second great commandment to love others, many people, and societies (as a whole) have forgotten the first. The first and second great commandments work together and allow for the fulfillment of the other. So how can we expect to keep the second great commandment – love thy neighbor – if we have forgotten the first – “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matthew 22:37).
Our society fails to acknowledge God and even discourages its citizens from doing so. For example, we are no longer allowed to pray in most schools, citing “separation of church and state,” which, contrary to popular opinion, is not a founding principle, nor is it constitutional. We discourage students from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance because the word God can’t be spoken. We place a capital “X” in the place of Christ for Christmas. We have abandoned our founding virtues and replaced them with vices: work with idleness, personal responsibility with dependability, united diversity with divided diversity, etc. We are disrespectful to God.
By not loving God we become powerless to loves others. Loving others requires patience, humility, selflessness, and commitment. Loving God teaches us patience because we wait on the Lord’s timing. Loving God teaches us humility because we acknowledge that One is higher than we are. Loving God teaches us selflessness because we seek to do the will of Another instead of our own. Loving God teaches us commitment by emulating God’s perfect commitment to our well-being.
Let us go back to loving God; cease our war against Him, return to our founding virtues, dedicate the sabbath as a day of reflection, fast, and prayer. That will empower the individual as well as the society to love one another. But until we gain that miracle from God, is it any wonder that we fail to do it on our own?
***Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world***
Ether 12:4
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