THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS (Part 2)

Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:36-40)

As I have pondered upon these poignant words of the Savior I have often asked myself the question, what is meant by these words of admonition given so long ago? I have come to be comfortable with the understanding that to love God is to make Him paramount in all my thoughts, all my words and all my works. As I have thought about what it means to love myself and my neighbor I have arrived at the conclusion that in both cases, love is truly given when I attempt to do all in my meager power to help in whatever way I can to move myself and my neighbor closer to eternal potential.

One of my favorite accounts of the process of the development of putting on the attribute of love in one’s life is found in the small book of Enos in the Book of Mormon. I have often left the reading of Enos’ account wondering about the years preceding the account we find on the few pages he recorded. I am sure he was well tutored by loving parents and went through many trials leading up to the days he relates in this short account. He obviously had progressed to the point where his father Jacob felt secure in anointing him to be the spiritual leader of the Nephite people.

Therefore, although Enos had been taught and schooled at the feet of a prophet of God, evidently he, like most of us, had heard the words, but as yet the real meaning had not sunk deep into his heart. When his father Jacob placed upon him the responsibilities of keeping the sacred records and caring for the Church, Enos felt a great need to receive the assurance that his past transgressions had indeed been forgiven and he was acceptable in the sight of the Lord as well as his father. Enos, having done all in his power to bring himself to his eternal potential, prayed all day and into the night, after which the Lord revealed to him that his sins had been washed away and he need have no fear in going forth to do the work to which he had been anointed.

I don’t find it the least bit surprising that once Enos had received the assurance of his worthiness he stepped forward to speak with the Lord on behalf of his fellowmen. Is it possible that we are born with a built in switch which gives us the ability to stand for righteousness with boldness if we can find the strength to move the switch? Is it possible that this same switch allows us to understand and appreciate ourselves as an offspring of Deity and we begin to act as such? Is it possible the activation of this switch allows us to more fully accept and appreciate ourselves as an important part of God’s purposes? Is it possible that by flipping this switch that righteous self-appreciation is turned on? Is it possible that the moving of this switch takes away the loathing we might have felt because of yielding to our weaknesses and we begin to love what we are becoming as a converted Son or Daughter of God?

I will always read Enos’ testimony, not as a solitary moment in his mortal passage, but as the moment where the collective experience of his journey came to fruition and the switch from what he was, was changed to what he was to be and he at last was moved to seriously walk the path he was sent to travel.

Many times as we attempt to move the switch we find the difficulty overwhelming and are stifled before we have finished the task. While the switch remains unmoved we remain forever stuck in a self-imposed limbo of treading in a never ending circle or returning again and again along the same ground. We seem to touch the straight and narrow only occasionally as we go from one fanatic burst of attempting immediate perfection or are moving in a downward thrust toward miserable depths. In reality, the switch only seems to move when through faith we believe and accept the Atonement of Jesus the Christ, place our feet firmly on the path leading unto Eternal Life and faithfully press forward putting off the natural man and having yielded our lives to the Spirit.

I believe that on that fateful day in the forest Enos successfully moved the switch and was then able to unhaltingly dedicate himself to doing that which was good. The wonderful bonus of having thrown the switch is that Enos could now in all humility appreciate the grandeur and wonder of himself as a child of God.

I believe that all other types of self-aggrandizements are counterfeit and will have dramatic falls, often before the sun has sunk below the horizon. The only love of self that will ever have permanence and can in the least way be considered righteous is that love which comes into one’s life when they have moved the switch from a self-indulging life, to a life of fulfilling the purposes for which they were sent to earth. Changing from one who is forever trying to add to their personal pile of tomorrow’s trash and switching to a life which is filled with trying to do the work of God by helping in some way to bring to pass their own immortality and eternal life as well as that of their brothers and sisters.

On that wonderful day Enos righteously made himself one of the neighbors who he was commanded to love, overcame many of life’s shortcomings, at last came to that place in life where he could have unfaltering respect for who he was and unconditionally love that new creature in Christ he was becoming.

TO BE CONTINUED