"I know thy heart, and have heard thy prayers concerning thy brethren. Be not partial towards them in love above many others, but let thy love be for them as for thyself; and let thy love abound unto all men, and unto all who love my name."
Doctrine and Covenants 112:11
This scripture is good. Kind of hard for me, since this is one of my areas of extreme weakness... but very instructive. :) God knows our hearts and how much we love the people around us. :) A good thing. But we shouldn't be partial in love towards the certain people that we include in our group, whatever that is... our family, or any group based on shared opinions or choices... We need to love everyone, and treat everyone well. It isn't very Christlike to pick and choose who we are going to treat well and who we are going to dismiss. It's like choosing sides... and the minute we choose sides, then we are choosing *against* God. He loves all people, and welcomes *everyone* into his arms. When we are exclusive instead of inclusive then we are getting into a very unhealthy area. The other intriguing thing in this scripture is that we need to love people as we love ourselves, which means that we should probably treat ourselves as well as we treat our closest friends... and that *you* need to be inclusive with yourself. Something to think about on this fine Saturday.
No comments:
Post a Comment