Pure Love ~ Part One

Good Morning or Good Afternoon or Good Evening, 

this post should take approximately five minutes to read from start to finish.

What does "Pure Love" means to you? What does "Pure Love" means to a immediate relative? 
What does "Pure Love" means to a friend? 

This post focuses on a BYU (Brigham Young University) Devotional in March 1999, and it is called "Pure Love" by Brother Eugene H. Bramhall. This post is part one, and I would like to share with you some highlights while I was reading the Devotional. 

Brother Bramall has mentioned the following; "... I will speak of love of God and love of man. I hope to illustrate that we can love God only as we learn to love ourselves and each other, and then I will draw two or three examples from history to demonstrate the importance of developing the capacity of true, unselfish love that reflects the best of who we are and what Heavenly Father would have us be.

In this process, I pray that I can offer an idea or two that will meet a need, satisfy a question, or offer hope. It is my prayer that I will be able to meet your expectations, and I invite your faith and prayers.

... Only two weeks ago Elder Holland, in his first devotional address here since being called as a General Authority in 1989, bore his testimony this way: I bear witness of the God of Glory, of the redeeming Son of God, of light and hope and a bright future. I promise you that God lives and loves you, each one of you, and that he has set bounds and limits to the opposing powers of darkness. 

I testify that Jesus is the Christ, the victor over death and hell and the fallen one who schemes there. The gospel of Jesus Christ is true, and it has been restored, just as we have sung and testified this morning. [Jeffrey R. Holland, “Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence,” BYU devotional, 2 March 1999, pp. 6–7]

The power of that fundamental and basic truth has never been more clear to me than now. I bear my own witness as I begin these remarks that we stand in the midst of giants who by their lives, words, and works carry the Savior’s message throughout the world. 

We call them apostles and prophets, just as they were called in the days of Jesus and Paul. ... President Hinckley has remarked that you are a royal generation. ... I believe that you and we have been preserved for this day and time to do much in the world that is good and important.

But I also know that each of us stands on the sturdy and steady shoulders of those who have gone before. ... Jeffrey Holland, as president of BYU, once addressed this subject. Speaking of those who have preceded us here, he said: We owe them something. We who are the beneficiaries of their sacrifice and their faith we owe them the best effort we can put forward in obtaining a truly edifying and liberating and spirit-soaring education. 

... Take this university forward in the same way your ancestors took it forward often with nothing more tangible to sustain them than their dreams and their traditions. [Jeffrey R. Holland, “Who We Are and What God Expects Us to Do,” Brigham Young University 1987–88 Devotional and Fireside Speeches (Provo: BYU, 1988), p. 20; emphasis in original] 

I am convinced that in order for us to know where we are going and to appreciate what we have, it is important for us to know where we, collectively, have been and to appreciate the sacrifices that have been made for us. ... In one way or another, all of us who have attended this university, who have walked its halls, who have taught here, or who have maintained its grounds or cooked its meals have had the same vision.

"Moroni 7:37 CHARITY is the PURE LOVE of
Christ."

King Benjamin says something of this in a different context. Speaking of our youth, he said: And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God. ... But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another. [Mosiah 4:14–15]

King Benjamin also said, “When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God” (Mosiah 2:17). The point is that pure love—the love for one another—can and should be a moving, powerful force for good. 

It is scriptural at its roots, and when it matures it can change us so that we become worthy to enter again into our Father’s presence. If we accept the first and second commandments at face value, it is likely that we will not be worthy to enter into our Father’s presence a second time until we have learned to love one another and to forgive one another—only then will we have also learned to love God.

Paul taught us that there are no strangers among us. ... Implied in this is the duty of all of us to love, forgive, and care for those who are less fortunate and more dependent than we are. ... 1852 by the First Presidency of the Church (consisting of Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Willard Richards), who enjoined us in part that we should seek after knowledge, all knowledge, and especially that which is from above . . . , and if you find any thing that God does not know, you need not learn that thing; but strive to know what God knows, and use that knowledge as God uses it, and then you will be like him; [you] will . . . have charity, love one another, and do each other good continually, and forever. 

[In James R. Clark, comp., Messages of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965–75), 2:86]"

Stay Tuned until next time.