Elder Holland - "My beloved brothers and sisters, I am not certain just what
our experience will be on Judgment Day, but I will be very surprised if at some
point in that conversation, God does not ask us exactly what Christ asked
Peter: “Did you love me?” I think He will want to know if in our very mortal,
very inadequate, and sometimes childish grasp of things, did we at least
understand one commandment, the first and greatest commandment of them
all—“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind.” And if at such a moment we
can stammer out, “Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee,” then He may remind
us that the crowning characteristic of love is always loyalty.
“If ye love me, keep my commandments,” Jesus said. So we
have neighbors to bless, children to protect, the poor to lift up, and the
truth to defend. We have wrongs to make right, truths to share, and good to do.
In short, we have a life of devoted discipleship to give in demonstrating our
love of the Lord. We can’t quit and we can’t go back. After an encounter with
the living Son of the living God, nothing is ever again to be as it was before…" (“The First Great Commandment” Elder Holland. General Conference Oct 2012)
