Area Presidency Message
Love Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ with All My Heart
“We bless those around us the most when we put the first commandment first. Love should be our motivation.”
Our love for Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ is manifested by our devotion and obedience as disciples of Jesus Christ.
When asked by a pharisee that was a lawyer: “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”
Jesus responded without any hesitation, “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”1.
I know that many wonder why our Heavenly Father put this first commandment first, as taught by the Savior Jesus Christ.
The answer is simple and if we seek to understand the “why”, the truth will be revealed to us by the Holy Ghost that we are all sons and daughters of loving Heavenly Father. He knows us and loves us: as John taught, God is love2. He desires our joy and happiness. He has established the plan of salvation and exaltation to allow us to access the blessings of exaltation through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, so that we can become like Him. Love for Our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ should be the motive that leads our life daily. If we love God and His Son Jesus Christ, we will want to keep all the commandments and they will become the most important influence in our life.
Let us learn from Joseph’s experience in Egypt, who had to make a choice between God, his employment and Potiphar’s wife. Joseph asked himself the question when he faced the temptation “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?”3
When he was in front of a dilemma and had to make a choice, Joseph remembered who he was, and this knowledge of his divine identity helped him to choose God first rather than choosing the world. He was more anxious to please God than any other thing, no matter the price he would have to pay. Joseph loved Our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ with all his heart.
Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught: “When we truly understand what it means to love as Jesus Christ loves us, the confusion clears and our priorities align. Our walk as disciples of Christ becomes more joyful. Our lives take on new meaning. Our relationship with our Heavenly Father becomes more profound. Obedience becomes a joy rather than a burden”4.
We manifest love for our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ as we keep the commandments and our covenants. This is the way to measure our faith, our obedience, and reflect the true altitude of our discipleship. “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”5
The first members of the Church in the Democratic Republic of Congo held their Sunday services at Brother Dieudonne Mbuyi Nkitabungi’s home in Kinshasa. The location was very far for many of the newly-baptized members of the Church. I remember that my parents used to wake up everyone in the family early in the morning, so that we could prepare for the long journey to attend the Church meeting every Sunday. This was the case for my family and many other Saints that embraced the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. As a little boy, I wondered what the reason was for such a sacrifice every week. Today, I know that this was a choice made by my parents to love our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ by exercising faith in them. They chose to be obedient to God’s commandments and faithful to the covenants that we made when we were baptized. Love was the motive of their actions.
Their devotion to the Lord has blessed many of us and their example has inspired many of the rising generation to remain on the covenant path. We bless those around us the most when we put the first commandment first.
We show that we love our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ with all our Heart, when we minister to others with joy and in a more excellent way6. If our ministering is to be most efficacious, it should be accomplished out of love for our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ. We should continue to seek for opportunities to minister to others. The Savior Jesus Christ taught: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me”7.
In the April 2018 general conference, our beloved prophet President Russell M. Nelson shared a personal experience he had 63 years ago about how he ministered to Brother Wilbur Cox. This is a real and true example of how we can bless individuals and families by ministering to them. Every act of kindness toward others increases our own spirituality. Ministering to others is indeed what the gospel and exalted life is all about.
President Nelson taught: “There are doors we can open, priesthood blessings we can give, hearts we can heal, burdens we can lift, testimonies we can strengthen, lives we can save, and joy we can bring into the homes of the Latter-day Saints.”8 We can do this through ministering as the Savior did and would do.
Thierry Kasuangi Mutombo was sustained as a General Authority Seventy in April 2020. He is married to Tshayi Nathalie Sinda. They are the parents of six children.