Do you love me more than you love ALL of this?

THE FIRST GREAT COMMANDMENT

~HE IS MY REFUGE AND MY FORTRESS~

Each Conference I try to listen to at least one talk a day. This talk by Elder Holland was my favorite and I have listened to it at least 5 times since November. But today....I heard it...really heard it. I love being able to read the scriptures and scriptural doctrine and being able to find something new in it; especially when you need it most. I can only hope to have more time on this Earth to learn more and more deeply understand this Gospel, the Atonement, and build my relationship and selflessness towards my Savior. I am humbled often by my lack of understanding and with the ability I have to sin. I am still like a child in the gospel and have so much more to learn. The Lord asked Peter THREE times if he loved him. My thought when I listened to this was that if the Lord asked me if I loved him that there would not be a second of hesitation for me to say YES! But as I listened to the talk I thought of the things that I have done that would not be showing the Savior my love for him and my devotion DAILY to the gospel. I'm sure he would ask, "Then Stephanie, why are you here?" Why are you not out serving my children?

“Then Peter, why are you here? Why are we back on this same shore, by these same nets, having this same conversation? Wasn’t it obvious then and isn’t it obvious now that if I want fish, I can get fish? What I need, Peter, are disciples—and I need them forever. I need someone to feed my sheep and save my lambs. I need someone to preach my gospel and defend my faith. I need someone who loves me, truly, truly loves me, and loves what our Father in Heaven has commissioned me to do. Ours is not a feeble message. It is not a fleeting task. It is not hapless; it is not hopeless; it is not to be consigned to the ash heap of history. It is the work of Almighty God, and it is to change the world. So, Peter, for the second and presumably the last time, I am asking you to leave all this and to go teach and testify, labor and serve loyally until the day in which they will do to you exactly what they did to me."

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.

I am so grateful for my testimony of the gospel that keeps my life on track, that gives me HOPE. That reminds me daily that the Savior has never left me. He will never leave me....that he loves me and prays for me. I need to remind myself every day to be a disciple of Christ and to never look back until his work is finished and that the love of God rules the world.