Elder Hutch U. Fale, a General Authority Seventy, opened with a familiar line: “I am a child of God and He loves me. This statement is powerful and empowering. More importantly, it is true, not just for me but for each of us and all of us.” Echoing the family proclamation, he taught that all human beings, male and female, are created in God’s image, each a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents with a divine nature and destiny. In the premortal realm we knew and worshipped God as our Father and accepted His plan. Understanding our Father’s love and our true identity is essential for our daily and eternal happiness. It prevents deception and gives purpose to this mortal life.
Families, he said, are a divine pattern for learning that love. Our relationship to God is described in family terms, and scripture teaches in family terms: the New Testament opens with a young family and a baby in Bethlehem, the Book of Mormon with a family’s journey of faith, and in the Old Testament creation was not complete until God organized the family. “It is often through families, despite all their imperfections, that our Father teaches us about His love.”
He shared a family moment. At a church meeting last year, he felt impressed to do what the teacher was doing and texted his wife to find a baby picture of each child. At home he showed them the pictures and told them there are no words for the love he and his wife felt when each was born. Then he asked, “As of the date of this picture, what had you done to earn our love?” They lowered their eyes. “Nothing.” “You are right. You did nothing to earn our love. By that same token, there is nothing you can ever do that will unearn or remove that love from you. You did not earn it; you cannot lose it. It is yours forever.”
He went on: “We need you to always remember that what we feel is but a small fraction of what your Heavenly Father feels for you. You are His child and He loves you. He loved you before you were born, He loves you today, and He will love you tomorrow. He wants you to prepare to be like Him. You must never forget this. We hope this understanding gives you courage to do your best, to trust Him, and to live up to your potential. We also hope it gives you the strength and the humility to come home when you need to, because no matter what has happened, you can always come home, just as you can always turn to your Father in Heaven.” There were tears and tender hearts as the Spirit bore witness. For others, he acknowledged, the window into that love might be a sibling, parent, spouse, aunt, uncle, or a grandparent never met, or only a desire for a family. Even when a loving family is not part of our earthly experience, knowing our Father loves us can provide power, peace, and comfort, especially as we remember the eternal-family blessings promised to all who keep covenants.
Then a warning: “Beware of the adversary’s deceitful lie that twists this precious truth.” Satan tries to convince God’s children that because God loves us, we can be saved regardless of our pride, regardless of our rebellion, regardless of our sins, and regardless of rejecting His Son. But “Receiving Christ through priesthood ordinances and covenants, and then being faithful to those covenants, is the only way for us to fully understand His love and the only way to exaltation.” God’s love is unconditional; His blessings of exaltation come through covenant.
He offered three reasons understanding the Father’s love matters. First, it helps us understand Jesus Christ: why He did what He did, why He loves us as He does, and why He is anxiously engaged in trying to save and bless all of his father’s children. It makes us eager to join that work and become like Him. Second, it makes us immune to the divisive and misleading labels of our fallen world, both those placed on us and those the world puts on others. We see all as beloved and divine, and become “We become quick to repent, slow to judge, and ever hopeful that the best is yet before us,” making sure no one is ever sitting, standing, or walking alone. Third, it protects us from the pernicious lie that it is too late for someone to change. From the prodigal son to the shepherd leaving the 99, the message has always been there is still yet time if we turn to Christ today.
“God’s love is real, and Jesus Christ is evidence of that love.” He conquered sin and the grave, and taught us to pray to our father, not just His Father or someone else’s father, but a Father who gives better gifts than any earthly father (Matthew 6:9; 7:11). Today Christ shows the Father’s love through priesthood keys held by living prophets and apostles, which give access to ordinances and covenants that prepare us to return home.
His witness first came as a young boy in Tonga, riding to his home village while reading a New Testament that printed John 3:16 in several languages: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “I knew this was true then, and I know it is true now.” He closed: “He loves me and He loves you. May this truth never leave our minds or our hearts, and may it change us forever.”
