Love, Service, and Perspective

The Universal Emotion

Everyone loves something. Bob loves Sally, Phil loves to make people smile, and Joe loves his truck. Love is arguably the most universal emotion. But there are many different things in which we can vest our love. Simply because everyone loves something does not mean that everyone loves the right things. 

We serve that which we love

We live in an insanely complicated world. How is it possible to know what we truly love? Marvin J. Ashton spoke once about how we can know our love for something, and how we show that love. He titled his speech, "We Serve that Which We Love," and indeed, I believe that the best way to find out what you love is to look at what you serve. 

Look at several examples of people serving that which they love: 

• A man loves his family, so he works 40 hours a week to provide for them.
• A teenage boy who loves the girls, so he opens doors for them. 
• A popular girl who loves her popularity, so she always has the most fashionable clothing. 
• A politician who loves his power, so he does everything to keep it (no matter how wrong it might be).
• A wall street director who loves money, so he embezzles and cheats his way to greater wealth. 
• A missionary who loves God, so he sacrifices two years of his life to serve Him. 

Our motive for doing things can be traced to our love. In the list above, we defined things which people do because they love something. Each of these situations are interchangeable, however. A man working 40 hours a week could also be doing out of love for money or for his job. A missionary could also go on a mission out of love for a girl rather than love of God. 

What Do We Love? 

Well, now we know that love is a cause of action, but the same action might be done for the love of many different things. Obviously the goodness of an action doesn't decide if that love is good, only that you are loving something. How do we know if our love for something is good? 

In order to determine what kinds of love are good and which are not, lets first look at what different kinds of love there are. 

One article said that there are four types of love: 

1. Agape (Christlike love, or charity)
2. Phileo (friendship, caring love)
3. Storge (family or natural love)
4. Eros (sexual or passionate love)

This list does show several things which we can love, but I feel that it doesn't quite touch what love actually is. 

In my mind there are three types of love from which stem all forms of love. One is pure love, and the other two are cop-outs. These are what the remainder of this article will focus on. 

Three Forms of Love

Love of Self

Call it lust, greed, selfishness, Eros, or pride, love of self is at the root. When I love me, I will naturally become prone to these other sins. But why is selfishness so bad? If I don't watch out for myself than who will?  This question has plagued the world since the time of Adam, in fact, lets start there. 

Cain, Satan, and the first business transaction

We all know the story of Cain and Abel. However, we often overlook a line in the story. Cain entered into an agreement with Satan, a business transaction if you will. Satan told Cain that if he would kill Abel, than Satan would reveal the "great secret" which was to "get gain." Gain for who? Cain. Love of Self.

The Root of All Evil

"The love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Timothy 6:10) But is it really? What is the love of money other than love of self? Money has no intrinsic value, it is merely a way to get gain. Again, gain for who? The person with the cash. The love of money is love of self. In the earlier days of the church this was a very common principle. Lets look at a few quotes that explain it better than I can: 

"I see young men growing up, and in their growth is the love of wealth, the love of ease and worldly comfort, and the desire and greed for money. I will tell you that the man who has the greed or hunger for money within him, and does not repress it, cannot be a Latter-day Saint." (George Q. Cannon, October 6th 1873 Semi-Annual General Conference)

"Love not gold, nor silver, nor anything of the kind, but gather around you that which will make you “healthy, wealthy, and wise;” then all will be right, and real wealth will increase around you, and wisdom from God will illuminate your course through life." (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Volume 9)

"I have heard of some people who had sunken so low that they would sell anything for money; mother or father, or brother or sister, or friend or neighbor would never stand in the way. They would do anything to obtain money; money is their God." (Joseph F. Smith, Journal of Discourses, Volume 23)

We can see that love of money or worldly things is indeed evil. We also know that these stem from a love of self. They are false Gods which serve you. A religion based on self is no religion at all. (James 1:27)

 Love of Others

What a relief, right? Now we've gotten to the good kind of love. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it actually isn't the good kind of love. While it's better than love of self, it still misses the mark. Allow me to explain. 

Serving Two Masters

Doing things for the love of others is great. It is important that we genuinely care about each other. But this is not the higher law. This is because of a simple law of physics. You cannot move two ways at once. If we were to put that into gospel terms we would have Matthew 6:24: 

"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

I would add that you cannot serve only others and still serve God. You can only serve one thing at a time, and that is the thing which you love. In order to more fully explain my meaning, I again turn to the words of prophets.

"Trying to please others before pleasing God is inverting the first and second great commandments. It is forgetting which way we face." (Lynn G. Robbins, October 2014 General Conference)

Make sense? You can only truly love one thing at a time, because "we serve that which we love," and "no man can serve (aka, love) two masters." Enough on this for now.

Love of God

Don't worry, this one is actually the good one! This is the pure form of love, and it is something that we will never achieve in our mortal lives. It is incredible in that it actually holds the pure forms of the other two types of love within it. I am not a strong enough wordsmith to explain this type of love better than the Lord, so I'll let Him do the talking for most of this section. 

"If ye love me..."

To begin, we have the first and great commandment: 

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind." (Luke 10:27)

Later, Christ explains how we ought to show our love for Him:

"If ye love me, keep my commandments. (aka, serve him)" (John 14:15)

Okay, so keep His commandments, lets go back to the great commandments. After all, on them "hang ALL the law and the prophets" (Matthew 22:40, emphasis added). As we have already shown that the first great commandment requires you to keep His commandments, lets look very closely at the second great one.

"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Matthew 22:39)

Wait a second! He just said that if you love Him you should love others. Didn't we just cover that? And didn't He also say to love them as THYself? Doesn't that require some love of self in the first place? But there it is, if you condense the logical flow of those verses you can see it. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and if ye love Him, love others as yourself. 

A Matter of Perspective

In order to reconcile these three forms of love, lets consult one last verse. 

"But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:33) 

It seems to be a matter of perspective. If you love God, you will also love others, and will also love yourself. If you don't put Him first, you will have no room to love Him. It's quite simple, and it is God's way of teaching us to rely on Him. President Uchtdorf put it very well in the October 2009 General Conference in which he said,

"God does not need us to love Him. But oh, how we need to love God! For what we love determines what we seek. What we seek determines what we think and do. What we think and do determines who we are—and who we will become."

That is the eternal perspective, isn't it? Put the Lord first, and everything else will work out in the end.

The Right Kind of Love

In conclusion I'm simply going to summarize the article and hopefully drive home the message I've tried to share. 

Love is a universal factor in how we live our lives. The things we love are the things we serve. If you serve money, power, or popularity, you are only loving yourself. If you serve others solely for their sake, you are only loving others, because you cannot serve two masters. But if you love God, than you will serve Him, others, and yourself. It's all in the perspective, and it is our Father's way of teaching us to become like Him. 

Love God, nothing else, and you will have a more pure love for everything else.