D. Todd Christofferson | The Love of God | Oct 2021 General Conference | Faith To Act

The Love of God
By Elder D. Todd Christofferson

Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Our Father and our Redeemer have blessed us with commandments, and in obeying Their commandments, we feel Their perfect love more fully and more profoundly.

Our Heavenly Father loves us profoundly and perfectly.1 In His love, He created a plan, a plan of redemption and happiness to open to us all the opportunities and joys we are willing to receive, up to and including all that He has and is.2 To achieve this, He was even willing to offer His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, as our Redeemer. “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.”3 His is a Father’s pure love—universal to all yet personal to each.

Jesus Christ shares with the Father this same perfect love. When the Father first elaborated His great plan of happiness, He called for one to act as a Savior to redeem us—an essential part of that plan. Jesus volunteered, “Here am I, send me.”4 The Savior “doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him. Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation.”5

This divine love should give us abundant comfort and confidence as we pray to the Father in the name of Christ. Not one of us is a stranger to Them. We need not hesitate to call upon God, even when we feel unworthy. We can rely on the mercy and merits of Jesus Christ to be heard.6 As we abide in God’s love, we depend less and less on the approval of others to guide us.

The Love of God Does Not Excuse Sin; Rather, It Offers Redemption
Because God’s love is all-embracing, some speak of it as “unconditional,” and in their minds they may project that thought to mean that God’s blessings are “unconditional” and that salvation is “unconditional.” They are not. Some are wont to say, “The Savior loves me just as I am,” and that is certainly true. But He cannot take any of us into His kingdom just as we are, “for no unclean thing can dwell there, or dwell in his presence.”7 Our sins must first be resolved.

Professor Hugh Nibley once noted that the kingdom of God cannot endure if it indulges even the smallest sin: “The slightest taint of corruption means that the other world would be neither incorruptible nor eternal. The tiniest flaw in a building, institution, code, or character will inevitably prove fatal in the long run of eternity.”8 The commandments of God are “strict”9 because His kingdom and its citizens can stand only if they consistently reject evil and choose good, without exception.10

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland observed, “Jesus clearly understood what many in our modern culture seem to forget: that there is a crucial difference between the commandment to forgive sin (which He had an infinite capacity to do) and the warning against condoning it (which He never ever did even once).”11

Despite our present imperfections, however, we can still hope to attain “a name and standing,”12 a place, in His Church and in the celestial world. After making it clear that He cannot excuse or wink at sin, the Lord assures us:

“Nevertheless, he that repents and does the commandments of the Lord shall be forgiven.”13

“And as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me.”14

Repentance and divine grace resolve the dilemma:

“Remember also the words which Amulek spake unto Zeezrom, in the city of Ammonihah; for he said unto him that the Lord surely should come to redeem his people, but that he should not come to redeem them in their sins, but to redeem them from their sins.

“And he hath power given unto him from the Father to redeem them from their sins because of repentance; therefore he hath sent his angels to declare the tidings of the conditions of repentance, which bringeth unto the power of the Redeemer, unto the salvation of their souls.”15

General Conference Saturday Morning Session October 2021

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