LDS Quotes on Commandements
“Warn them that they will encounter people who pick which commandments they will keep and ignore others that they choose to break. I call this the cafeteria approach to obedience. This practice of picking and choosing will not work. It will lead to misery.”
“Someone once asked me, ‘Don’t you think the commandments should be rewritten?’ The answer was, ‘No, they should be reread.'”
The most important of all the commandments of God is that one that you’re having the most difficulty keeping. Today is the day for you to work…until you’ve been able to conquer that weakness. Then you start on the next one that’s most difficult for you to keep.
| Church News, May 5, 1973, p. 3
There is a careful way and a casual way to do everything, including living the gospel. As we consider our commitment to the Savior, are we careful or casual? Because of our mortal nature, don’t we sometimes rationalize our behavior, at times referring to our actions as being in the gray, or mixing good with something that’s not so good? Anytime we say, “however,” “except,” or “but” when it applies to following the counsel of our prophet leaders or living the gospel carefully, we are in fact saying, “That counsel does not apply to me.” We can rationalize all we want, but the fact is, there is not a right way to do the wrong thing!
“Sabbath observance is a good sign of a person’s religiosity. If [people] think enough to keep the Sabbath day holy, then they would likely be living . . . other precepts of their religion.”
“Being born again is a gradual thing, except in a few isolated instances that are so miraculous they get written up in the scriptures. As far as the generality of the members of the Church are concerned, we are born again by degrees, and we are born again to added light and added knowledge and added desires for righteousness as we keep the commandments.”
| “Jesus Christ and Him Crucified,” 1976 Devotional Speeches of the Year
God’s laws are motivated entirely by His infinite love for us and His desire for us to become all we can become.
“My brothers and sisters, the first great commandment of all eternity is to love God with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength—that’s the first great commandment. But the first great truth of all eternity is that God loves us with all of His heart, might, mind, and strength. That love is the foundation stone of eternity, and it should be the foundation stone of our daily life. Indeed it is only with that reassurance burning in our soul that we can have the confidence to keep trying to improve, keep seeking forgiveness for our sins, and keep extending that grace to our neighbor.”
| “Tomorrow the Lord Will Do Wonders among You”
“It has sometimes been asked whether God commands certain things because they are right, or whether certain things are right because God commands them…I empathically embrace the first alternative. The second might lead to the abominable conclusion that charity is good only because God arbitrarily commanded it — that He might equally well have commanded us to hate Him and one another and that hatred would then have been right. I believe, on the contrary, that ‘they err who think that of the will of God to do this or that there is no reason besides His will.'”
“But there’s another way of looking at taking the Lord’s name in vain. When we partake of the sacrament we renew a covenant to take Christ’s name upon us. When we do so out of habit rather than as a sincere choice, are we taking His name in vain? … The Hebrew word that was translated in our scriptures as vain means meaningless and empty… Perhaps the commandment in Exodus 20:7 should read thou shalt not take upon thyself the name of God with empty and meaningless intent. When we give up the hope Christ offers through His Atonement, are we taking the Lord’s name in vain? Are we rendering His grace, His divine help, as useless, empty, and meaningless in our lives?”
| The Law of the Gospel
“…we can choose to see commandments as limitations. We may feel at times that God’s laws restrict our personal freedom, take from us our agency, and limit our growth. But as we seek for greater understanding, as we allow our Father to teach us, we will begin to see that His laws are a manifestation of His love for us and obedience to His laws is an expression of our love for Him.”
| "If Ye Love Me, Keep My Commandments,” 2015 General Conference
[A sacrament is] “a pledge and promise on man’s part to forsake personal sins, knowing that if he does so he will be blessed by the Lord. When the saints partake of the ordinance of the sacrament, they promise not simply to keep the commandments in general, but also to serve and conform and obey where they as individuals have fallen short in the past. Every man’s sacraments are thus his own; he alone knows his failures and sins, and he alone must overcome the world and the flesh so that he can have fellowship with the saints.”
| A New Witness for the Articles of Faith
“A friend is a possession we earn, not a gift. . . . The Lord has declared that those who serve him and keep his commandments are called his servants. After they have been tested and tried and are found faithful and true in all things, they are called no longer servants, but friends. His friends are the ones he will take into his kingdom and with whom he will associate in an eternal inheritance.”
| “What Is a Friend?” Ensign, January 1973, p. 41
“In a world where the moral compass of society is faltering, the restored gospel of Jesus Christ never wavers, nor should its stakes and wards, its families, or its individual members. We must not pick and choose which commandments we think are important to keep but acknowledge all of God’s commandments. We must stand firm and steadfast, having perfect confidence in the Lord’s consistency and perfect trust in His promises.”
When God commands, do it!
| History of the Church, 2:170; from “History of the Church” (manuscript), book B-1, p. 558
Ultimately, everything God invites and commands us to do is an expression of His love for us and His desire to give us the blessings reserved for the faithful.
| After the Trial of Our Faith
“God’s laws are motivated entirely by His infinite love for us and His desire for us to become all we can become.”
“I have met any number of people who have said the Word of Wisdom is not a command from the Lord, that it is not given by way of commandment. But the Word of Wisdom is the will of the Lord and the Lord says in the words that I have just read that it is not meet that we should be commanded in all things (D&C 58:26-29) . . . One of the best ways in all the world to bring to pass much righteousness is to set an example as a conscientious, God-fearing Latter-day Saint, observing all of the requirements of the Lord.”
| Conference Report, April 1931, pp. 12-13
“Obedience is a hallmark of prophets; it has provided strength and knowledge to them throughout the ages. It is essential for us to realize that we, as well, are entitled to this source of strength and knowledge. It is readily available to each of us today as we obey God’s commandments.”
“There are rules and laws to help ensure our physical safety. Likewise, the Lord has provided guidelines and commandments to help ensure our spiritual safety so that we might successfully navigate this often-treacherous mortal existence and return eventually to our Heavenly Father.”
“The knowledge which we seek, the answers for which we yearn, and the strength which we desire today to meet the challenges of a complex and changing world can be ours when we willingly obey the Lord’s commandments.”
“Truly God loves us, and because He loves us, he neither compels or abandons us. Rather, he helps us and guides us. Indeed, the real manifestation of God’s love is His commandments.”
“I too believe that God will always make a way where there is no way. I believe that if we will walk in obedience to the commandments of God, if we will follow the counsel of the priesthood, he will open a way even where there appears to be no way.”
| If Ye Be Willing and Obedient", Ensign, Jul 1995, 2
“Let us get our instruments tightly strung and our melodies sweetly sung. Let us not die with our music still in us. Let us rather use this precious mortal probation to move confidently and gloriously upward toward the eternal life which God our Father gives to those who keep His commandments.”
| The Miracle of Forgiveness (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1969), 17.
“Decisions of character are made by remembering the right order of the first and second great commandments.”
“We need strength beyond ourselves to keep the commandments in whatever circumstance life brings to us. … The combination of trials and their duration are as varied as are the children of our Heavenly Father. No two are alike. But what is being tested is the same, at all times in our lives and for every person: will we do whatsoever the Lord our God will command us?”
| "In the Strength of the Lord," Ensign, May 2004, 17
“Because of Christ there is hope smiling brightly before you, and you need not worry too much about sickness, death, poverty, or other afflictions. The Lord will take care of you. Your responsibility is to keep the commandments, feast upon the words of Christ, and stay in the path to your heavenly home.”
| "There Is Hope Smiling Brightly before Us", Ensign, May 2003, 103
“Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God.”
“God reveals to his prophets that there are moral absolutes. Sin will always be sin. Disobedience to the Lord’s commandments will always deprive us of his blessings.
If we speak of faith in the abstract, it is the power of God by which the worlds are and were made, and is a gift of God to those who believe and obey his commandments.
| Journal of Discourses, 8:259
“The Savior himself declared that he came to fulfill the law, not to do away with it, but with the law he brought the principle of mercy to temper its enforcement, and to bring hope and encouragement to [the] offenders for forgiveness through [mercy and] repentance.”
| Conference Report, 3 Apr. 1954, p. 11.
“I have heard people say, and members of the Church too, ‘I have a right to do as I please.’ My answer is: No, you do not. You haven’t any right at all to do just as you please. There is only one right that you have, and that is to do just what I read to you: keep the commandments of Jesus Christ. He has a perfect right to tell us so. We have no right to refuse. I do not care who the man is; I do not care where he lives, or what he is – when the gospel of Jesus Christ is presented to him, he has no right to refuse to receive it. He has the privilege. He is not compelled to receive it, because our Father in heaven has given to everyone of us, in the Church and out, the gift of free agency. That free agency gives us the privilege to accept and be loyal to our Lord’s commandments, but it has never given us the right to reject them. Every man who rejects the commandments of our Father in heaven is rebellious.”
| Conference Report, April 1967, pp. 120-21
“Let the Savior be your “lead” in life. He has said, “I am . . . the Rock of Heaven . . . ; whoso cometh in at the gate and climbeth up by me shall never fall” (Moses 7:53). The Redeemer will safely lead you over the most difficult obstacles of life. His laws are absolutely secure anchors of protection that dispel fear and assure success in an otherwise dangerous world. Such a life will certainly provide you peace and happiness.”
| “The Atonement Can Secure Your Peace and Happiness,” Ensign, November 2006, pp. 40-41
“I thought for many years that love was an attribute. But it is more. It is a commandment.”
“For each of us to “come unto Christ,” to keep His commandments and follow His example back to the Father is surely the highest and holiest purpose of human existence. To help others do that as well—to teach, persuade, and prayerfully lead them to walk that path of redemption also—surely that must be the second most significant task in our lives.”
“We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”