"And behold, I have given you the law and the commandments of my Father, that ye shall believe in me, and that ye shall repent of your sins, and come unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Behold, ye have the commandments before you, and the law is fulfilled.
Therefore come unto me and be ye saved; for verily I say unto you, that except ye shall keep my commandments, which I have commanded you at this time, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven."
3 Nephi 12:19-20
I think sometimes that we forget our obligations to God. Not always consciously, but we can get into this mindset where we think that God loves us and he’ll let us get away with anything. The cool thing is… He definitely does love us, and God *can* save us from the consequences of our actions sometimes… but we have to put in some effort, and we have to work on changing ourselves so that we won’t want to do those same things again. We have to not want to break God’s law… part of being contrite and repenting is working to get to that point. I think it is interesting that he asks for a “broken heart” as well. I’m not sure this means broken heart like it has been shattered and is lying in pieces… I think it might be broken, as in house broken or breaking a horse. The focus is on taming, or teaching our hearts to do the right things, not on destroying them. We have to remember that God’s laws are there to help us become the people that we need to be to enter back into God’s presence. God isn’t arbitrary, and he doesn’t ask for anything that we don’t actually need… all of these things teach us and help us become who we need to become in order to return to him. Today, let’s remember that we cannot get into the kingdom of heaven without keeping God’s commandments. Let’s work on keeping them, and remember that they are designed to help us change ourselves into better people… people who are prepared to live in heaven, and to see God.
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