Commandments: All you need is love!

The fundamental problem with the Law of Moses wasn't the Law, itself, but rather, as the Bible Dictionary puts it, "the Law was worshipped more than the Lord." The way I see it, the Mosaic Law was intended as a minimum standard. It set the bar. The Pharisees, however, started to nit-pick every detail and made it into exact limits of what they could and couldn't do. So, instead of exceeding the expectations of the Law, they - at best - would approach its expectations and jump at every shortcut they could see. In essence, they emphasized the dos and don'ts more than the symbolism and
representations.

When Christ fulfilled the Law, he didn't scrap expectations altogether. It seems much of Christianity believes that since people were not reaching the standard of the Law of Moses, Christ instead enabled us to under-perform and still be saved.

On the contrary, he concluded the Sermon on the Mount commanding perfection. The same level of perfection as our Father in Heaven, even. Now, instead of doing everything we can to approach the bar, we have the Atonement of the Christ that helps us to "deny [ourselves] of all ungodliness" (Moroni 10:32).

Day by day, repentance allows us to stand a little taller. My first companion and I had a great conversation once about our language. We were debating for a good chunk of time what words constituted swearing. Eventually, we realized we were both missing the whole point. Good language isn't about avoiding this list of ten words, and using these five other words sparingly. Really, any word that we use that has a bad feel to it, we decided to avoid. We weren't perfect with it, but as we went, words that we hadn't even included in our conversation as potential swear words felt unnatural and distasteful. This commandment, as with all others, is not about setting the bar; it's about raising the bar every single day.

Tithing, it is interesting to note, is one of only two parts of the lower law still practiced in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And yet we still make it, more than anything else, into a list of dos and donts. "Do we pay 10% of our gross income or our net income?" "Should I pay tithing on my Social Security benefits or child support?" "Do we tithe dividends made from investments, or just real income?" All these questions simply miss the point. Quite honestly, they are all fairly Pharisaic. The higher law version of tithing is consecration, where we give all that we can. That will be FAR more than 10% of our gross income and our benefits and our investment increases, I'm sure. And you know what? I don't believe the prophet will ever announce in General Conference that it is time for us to
consecrate. I believe that will come person by person, as we forget the list-making and being truly coming closer to the Lord and becoming like Him.
These examples can be extended to Sabbath day worship, the Law of Chastity, the Word of Wisdom, personal prayer, Family Home Evening, scripture study, and every single other commandment God has ever revealed to the world. The day we live these laws perfectly is the day we are translated. If
 you are still mortal, there is some room you can make in each of these laws. Stop making lists to figure out how much worse you could be and still receive salvation; start figuring out where you need to repent and better yourself.

Remember, the commandments aren't for the sake of the law; they're for the sake of the Lord. He, Himself, said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15) and "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind... Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Matthew 22:37-39). Paul later showed that each of the Ten Commandments is fulfilled in the love of God and neighbor (Romans 13).

My idea is this: If we can focus on loving Christ and coming unto Him, we will naturally yearn to use His infinite sacrifice to its fullest potential. Not to cast shadows over the gaps in our character, but to truly fill those gaps through a renewed commitment of obedience. As we do so, our love of the Redeemer will only grow and we will come to know him all the better. When we focus on Him, the lowest standards of the law will never be satisfactory. If we focus only on the minimum mark, we will simply never become what God has commanded that we become. Boyd K. Packer said at a recent stake conference that at times it's hard to find the gospel in the Church because we get so busy. Let's make sure this does not apply to us! Let our obedience be for the right reasons. As John put it, "we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments" (1 John 2:3). It's not about what principles of righteousness we can get out of obeying; it's about what sins and shortcomings can we get out of ourselves through the Atonement, because of our love of the Son of God.