Love God With All Your Heart

We often think of the Law of Moses as simply a strict set of rules, but at the core of the law was this concept: “And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul” (Deuteronomy 10:12).  The principle of serving God with all of our heart is still at the center of the Gospel today: “O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day” (D&C 4:2).  The Book of Mormon teaches us that part of our baptismal covenant is in fact to serve God with all of our heart.  The people of King Limhi spent many years in bondage serving the Lamanites.  They were forced to give up half of all of their means to the Lamanites and tried unsuccessfully three times to fight their captors and gain freedom.  They eventually turned to the Lord and realized that they wanted to serve Him, not the Lamanites.  After Ammon arrived with the other Nephites, they desired of him to be baptized.  Mormon wrote, “They were desirous to be baptized as a witness and a testimony that they were willing to serve God with all their hearts” (Mosiah 21:35).  Their experience of being physically forced to serve the Lamanites helped them to cultivate their desire to serve God with all of their hearts.  They didn’t have the opportunity to be baptized right away, but eventually once they were all back in Zarahemla Alma baptized them into the Church of God.  Today most of us are not physically in bondage, but I think many of us do find ourselves serving other masters much more than God.  The people of Limhi realized that they could not “serve God and mammon” and needed to be free from the Lamanites to truly serve God with all of their hearts (Luke 16:13).  We too have to be able to put God first among all of the potential masters in the world that vie for our devotion.  As Elder Oaks put it, “The principle is not whether we have other priorities. The question posed by the second commandment is ‘What is our ultimate priority?’” (GC Oct. 2013)