D&C 38:25-27 -- On Esteem and Enemies

"And again I say unto you, let every man esteem his brother as himself.
For what man among you having twelve sons, and is no respecter of them, and they serve him obediently, and he saith unto the one: Be thou clothed in robes and sit thou here; and to the other: Be thou clothed in rags and sit thou there—and looketh upon his sons and saith I am just?
Behold, this I have given unto you as a parable, and it is even as I am. I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine."
Doctrine and Covenants 38:25-27


The way that God thinks about this topic is very different than the way that we as a society do. Somehow, as we are working towards our definition of equality, we are dividing and hating more, where God asks us to achieve oneness through the way that we think about other people, holding them in our esteem exactly as much as we value ourselves. Too often we believe that one person deserves our compassion and another doesn't, because they are on two different sides of some dividing line, and we have chosen the other one. "These ones, we say... these are our brothers, the people that care about _____." While the others are just wasting oxygen and polluting our world with their empty rhetoric. Instead, God asks us to achieve oneness by loving both sides of all of those dividing lines... old and young, rich and poor, political and nonpolitical, sinner and saint... specifically asking us to love our enemies, which are likely those on the other side of our favorite dividing line.

Today, let's work on taking a step back and reevaluating our perspective in this area... perhaps starting by considering the poor, which God offers as an example here, but also by thinking about labels and groups of people that we are diametrically opposed to, and figuring out how we can love them more and esteem them more like we value ourselves. It isn't an easy task, but placing ourselves on the other team in any of these cases isn't working either. Let's pray and work to reach out to those that we might not understand or currently even care about, but need to learn to love if our world is ever to achieve oneness, and become a Zion community. God will help us if we make a sincere effort and work to see things from his perspective. We are all brothers and sisters, even the people that disagree with us about important things.