Love

Love: Perhaps the reason this talk attracts me so much is because of how long I have spent during my life feeling UNloved, both by the Lord and my fellow-man. After much repentance, I now feel loved. But, the thing I love about this talk is the promise of feeling higher levels of love with greater consecration.


Elder Russell M. Nelson's talk:

Divine Love Is Also Conditional

While divine love can be called perfect, infinite, enduring, and universal, it cannot correctly be characterized as unconditional. The word does not appear in the scriptures. On the other hand, many verses affirm that the higher levels of love the Father and the Son feel for each of us—and certain divine blessings stemming from that love—are conditional. Before citing examples, it is well to recognize various forms of conditional expression in the scriptures.

The Conditional Nature of Divine Love

With scriptural patterns of conditional statements in mind, we note many verses that declare the conditional nature of divine love for us. Examples include:
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“If ye keep my commandments, [then] ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.”18

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“If you keep not my commandments, [then] the love of the Father shall not continue with you.”19

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“If a man love me, [then] he will keep my words: and my Father will love him.”20

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“I love them that love me; and those that seek me … shall find me.”21

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“God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.”22

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The Lord “loveth those who will have him to be their God.”23

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“He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”24