THE FIRST GREAT COMMANDMENT Summary

183rd Annual General Conference of

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Sunday morning, October 2012

Key Doctrines and Principles:  

Eloquently teaching from the scriptures, Elder Holland inquires if we are like the scribes and Pharisees? As Herod and Pilate? Or as the apostles and disciples after the crucifixion? Do we, like they, think we can encounter or accept Christ and then go forward unchanged? Elder Holland elaborates the scriptural words of Christ to ask if you can “blissfully go back to being whatever you were before? Children, did not my life and my love touch your hearts more deeply than this?”

Elder Holland teaches, “Do we understand “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.’ (See Luke 10:27; also Matthew 22:37–38.) . . . 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. [It] marks the beginning of a Christian life, not the end of it. ...This truth, this reality [compels us] on to shape the history of the world in which we now live.”

Favorite Quotes:

“We sometimes forget just how inexperienced they still were and how totally dependent upon Jesus they had of necessity been (John 14:9). . . . Three years isn’t long to call an entire Quorum of Twelve Apostles from a handful of new converts, purge from them the error of old ways, teach them the wonders of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then leave them to carry on the work until they too were killed. Quite a staggering prospect for a group of newly ordained elders.”

“‘[Jesus] called out to them, ‘Children, have you caught anything?’ Glumly [they] gave the answer no fisherman wants to give. ‘We have caught nothing.’ (John 21:3-7) ‘Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find.’”

“Looking at their battered little boats, their frayed nets, and a stunning pile of 153 fish, Jesus said to His senior Apostle, ‘Peter, do you love me more than you love all this?’ (John 21:15). . . . (I acknowledge my nonscriptural elaboration), perhaps saying something like: ‘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.’”

So What?

As I read these non-scriptural Holland paraphrase I seem to hear my name instead of Peter’s. “Linda do you love me more than you love all [these distractions]? . . . Linda, why are you here? . . . I need someone who loves me, truly, truly loves me, and loves what our Father in Heaven has commissioned you to do.” Since hearing this talk I often examine areas of my thoughts and actions checking if I, like the apostles, have “returned to my nets” or if I am feeding the lambs and caring for the sheep.

Elder Holland comments, “John said the obvious: “It is the Lord. . . . And over the edge of the boat, the irrepressible Peter leaped.” Can each I be like Peter, eager to love and serve the Lord?

Elder Holland teaches, “The call is to come . . . , to stay true, to love God, and to lend a hand. I include in that call to fixed faithfulness . . . every one of us. Your Father in Heaven expects your loyalty and your love at every stage of your life. . . . The voice of Christ comes ringing down through the halls of time, asking each one of us while there is time, ‘Do you love me?’(Emphasis mine.)"