Love God with all thy heart. Loving God with all our hearts means having righteous desires. Why? Because our desires directly impact our choices and our moral agency. The desire of our hearts is the driving force behind our actions and choices. Loving God with all our hearts means desiring to submit our wills to God, change our ways, repent of our sins, strive to overcome our weaknesses, and “let the affections of [our] heart[s] be placed upon the Lord forever.” All our desires, be it temporal or spiritual, should be rooted in our love of God.

Love God with all thy soul. The Lord invites us to “come unto him, and offer [our] whole souls as an offering unto him.” Offering our whole souls to Him means following His commandments willingly and joyfully, without the grudging thought that we are only following Him because of the blessings that we will receive or because we are compelled to follow.

Love God with all thy mind. When we love God with all our minds, we strive to remember Him each day, not only because we made a promise to remember Him always when we were baptized, but because we want to be reminded of God’s perfect love for us no matter the circumstance. We also take the time to study the scriptures, attend Sunday school, seminary, and institute classes, and listen to prophets and apostles. Focusing and filling our minds with His words and the words of His servants will help us know Him better and understand His goodness and love for us.

Love God with all thy strength. Loving God with all our strength means losing ourselves in the service of our fellowmen, because by doing so, we are in the service of our God. It involves sacrificing our personal time, using our talents, exerting our efforts, and giving of our substance to those whose hands need a little lifting. It also means caring for and strengthening our bodies to be capable of serving.

Love thy neighbor as thyself. Loving our neighbor cannot be separated from loving God, for in the scriptures the Lord Himself said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” This is the second great commandment. It is important to note that obeying this commandment is not simply about loving others. It is about loving others as we love ourselves. It means looking after the welfare of others, bearing one another’s burden, uplifting those whose shoulders hang down with sorrow, recognizing that none of our fellow travelers on this earth are perfect, and cultivating an attitude of kindness and generosity one towards another. The question, “Would I do the same to myself?” will help us consistently check if we are truly loving our neighbors.

As we obey the first great commandment, our loyalty to Heavenly Father will not waiver even at the darkest stage of our lives. And when the time comes that He asks, “Do you love me?”, we will be able to answer without a second thought, “Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.”

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However, it is very apparent in the world today that love can also describe a strong devotion to that which is evil—love of money, strife, or contention, among many others. The use of love in this manner is incorrect. How then, can we avoid incorrect love?

Serve that which is eternally oriented

We learn to love that which we serve; therefore, we must carefully choose the areas in which we serve. The things to which we give our time, effort and resources will eventually become the things that we love. This love can be the love of a mother for her children as she devotes her life to nurturing them, or the love of a farmer for his farm as he spends time taking care of his crops. But it could also be the love a person develops for gambling as he devotes his resources to it.

Hence, if we want to love the right things, then we must serve that which is right because our love for something grows in proportion to our service we render for it. We can always be sure that things that are eternally oriented, such as serving our family and neighbors, feeding the hungry, and comforting the sick and the afflicted, are the right areas to serve.

Use our time wisely

We cannot bring back time once already spent; that is why they say that time is gold. What we spend our time on will eventually influence what we love. Loving correctly means spending our time correctly. This means using our time to do things that contribute to our best good, do activities that further improve ourselves, be with people who influence us to live righteously, read articles and texts that enrich our knowledge and wisdom, etc. Spending our time on things that do not stagnate our progress is spending our time wisely.

Sacrifice for the right reasons

Some may say that sacrifice is the noblest thing we can do, but this only rings true when we make sacrifices for the betterment of ourselves and others. An old saying goes, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime!” Giving a man a fish is an unwise sacrifice, but teaching a man to fish not only increases our capacity to love others but also gives the other person the ability to better himself.

May we always choose love—the correct kind of love.

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In John 13:34, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” We can celebrate this Valentine’s season by serving others. Loving God is also loving others and it can be achieved through service. Elder Oaks said, “Service stems from loving God and others.” He also quoted, “Such high standards of service are commanded in the 4th section of the Doctrine and Covenants, verse 2: “Therefore, 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.” Serving God should be rooted in our love for Him and others. Some may serve out of duty or for a reward, but for others it is a way of showing love to other people and love to Him. It’s not a responsibility, it’s a privilege.

One way to celebrate this valentine’s season is by remembering Him and setting new goals on how to have a stronger commitment to God. You can set a goal on how you will keep every Sunday holy and sacred, a goal to show your love to others and to be kind in every way, a goal to have a stronger testimony of God, a goal to start reading the scriptures. There are lot of ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day by putting Him in the center of everything. That’s the real essence why we are celebrating Valentine’s Day. We are celebrating love, service, and God Himself.

Love is an action word. You cannot love by simply saying it. Love is not just a feeling, it is a combination of action and strong conviction. It should lead you to draw closer to God and to be kind to others. A quote in lds.org says, “Love is a feeling of deep devotion, concern, and affection. The greatest example of God’s love for His children is found in the infinite Atonement of Jesus Christ. Love for God and fellow men is a characteristic of disciples of Jesus Christ.” The atonement of Christ is the evidence of God’s love to us. That love existed even before the world began.

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