Book of Mormon, D & C, Pearl of Great Price

When the teenaged Nephi, the first Book of Mormon writer whose work we still have, received his first vision, it was in response to his desire to gain a testimony of the vision his father had just seen. While pondering and praying, an angel came to instruct him.

The angel asked young Nephi if he knew the meaning of the tree in his father’s vision. Nephi responded that it represented God’s love, “which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things.” (1 Nephi 11:22) The angel agreed and added, “Yea, and the most joyous to the soul.”

There are millions of articles in magazines and on the Internet, thousands of books, hundreds of television programs devoted to the theme of how to get someone to love you. Do you ever long to have someone who will love you even on the days you’re less than perfect? You already have two such people—God and Jesus.

We are all children of a heavenly Father and He loves us. He is able to love us because we lived with Him as spirits before we came here—when people talk poetically of babies coming from Heaven, we can know this is literally true. While there, we enjoyed His presence and His teachings, and we learned to make choices. He watched us, learned about us and interacted with us—and loved us as we grew in our ability to choose.

One choice we made was to follow the Savior when we came to earth. Not everyone made this choice. One third of those in Heaven preferred to follow Satan, and those were denied the opportunity to come to earth. Just by being here, we know we made the critical decision at a critical moment in eternity. We chose wisely, and so we came to earth, bringing God’s love with us.

Because memory of that time is largely erased, except for small flashes of remembrance, we operate here on faith. We have to rediscover God’s love for us, and learn to feel it even though He is far away, just as we remember our earthly parents’ love for us when we live across the country or across the world.

We can’t intentionally ignore God and His teachings and expect to feel His love with us all the time. While God certainly does not expect that we’ll be perfect here on earth, He does expect us to give it our very best effort. The Savior, representing God, said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)

Further down the page, in verse 23, Jesus added, “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

So we can see that although God sent us here in love, we who know of Him have a responsibility. If we’re not doing what He asks of us, when we know what He asks, then we don’t love Him enough. Jesus puts a gentle condition on the fullness of God’s love for us: “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him.” Again, this isn’t to say we must be perfect, but we must always be working toward perfection.

Russell M. Nelson, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, helps us to understand this concept:

“Does this mean the Lord does not love the sinner? Of course not. Divine love is infinite and universal. The Savior loves both saints and sinners. The Apostle John affirmed, “We love him, because he first loved us.” And Nephi, upon seeing in vision the Lord’s mortal ministry, declared: “The world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men.” We know the expansiveness of the Redeemer’s love because He died that all who die might live again.”Russell M. Nelson, “Divine Love,” Ensign, Feb 2003, 20

Although he speaks of the Savior, we know that God and Jesus are exactly united in their teachings. Elder Nelson carries this further, to help us understand the eternal consequences of this teaching:

“God declared that His work and glory is “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” Thanks to the Atonement, the gift of immortality is unconditional. The greater gift of eternal life, however, is conditional. In order to qualify, one must deny oneself of ungodliness and honor the ordinances and covenants of the temple. The resplendent bouquet of God’s love—including eternal life—includes blessings for which we must qualify, not entitlements to be expected unworthily. Sinners cannot bend His will to theirs and require Him to bless them in sin. If they desire to enjoy every bloom in His beautiful bouquet, they must repent.”Russell M. Nelson, “Divine Love,” Ensign, Feb 2003, 20

And so, we can depend on God to love us and to help us through this mortal challenge He has offered us. In return, we must do our part and demonstrate the depth of our love through the depth of our commitment to live His teachings.

Nephi, the first prophet whose writings we have in the Book of Mormon, was given a vision of the Savior when He was still a teenager. In 1 Nephi 11:14-21 we read of the birth of the Savior, as seen by young Nephi in the vision:

14 And it came to pass that I saw the heavens open; and an angel came down and stood before me; and he said unto me: Nephi, what beholdest thou?
15 And I said unto him: A virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins.
16 And he said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God?
17 And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things.
18 And he said unto me: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh.
19 And it came to pass that I beheld that she was carried away in the Spirit; and after she had been carried away in the Spirit for the space of a time the angel spake unto me, saying: Look!
20 And I looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms.
21 And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father!

Latter-day Saints know Jesus is the literal son of both Mary and Heavenly Father. His birth was indeed a divine miracle. Elder Bruce R. McConkie taught: “Just as Jesus is literally the Son of Mary, so he is the personal and literal offspring of God the Eternal Father, who himself is an exalted personage having a tangible body of flesh and bones.”

Joseph, a faithful and humble man, was chosen by God to carry out the earthly duties of a father for Jesus, caring for Jesus, teaching Him, and helping Mary to prepare Him for His future mission. He was, essentially, a foster father, not the literal, physical father of Jesus.

While there are those who seek to remove the divinity behind the Savior’s birth, we know that to remove the divinity of His birth would also remove the divinity of His life. His mission on earth, to redeem us all, could only be possible if His birth had happened the way the scriptures say they happened—through divine and sacred miracles.

Jesus, like every man who ever lived, must have a father, and that Father was God Himself, providing the divinity that made possible the things that Jesus did during His lifetime. While all of us are literal children of God, only Jesus was begotten, with no other father but God. It is because of this, because God was willing to give us His only Begotten Son to endure the extraordinary trials of the Garden of Gethsemane and the cross that we can return home and live forever, possibly even in the direct presence of God.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” –John 3:16