From the book “For Times of Trouble” Elder Jeffrey R. Holland shared first from. . . .
Psalm 89:30-34
If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments;
If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments;
Then will I visit their transgression with a rod, and their iniquity with stripes.
Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.
My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.
We would be foolish to believe that breaking the commandments does not take its toll upon us. The very purpose of a commandment is to mark a path that, if we follow it, will spare us personal pain and unwanted sorrow. In breaking a commandment there is (as in Newtonian Physics) a reaction to every such action. The reaction will always have some kind of negative result.
But God will never remove His lovingkindness from us, nor will He suffer His faithfulness to fail unless our own actions insist on it. We can be assured that He will not break his covenants with us nor alter any of the words that have been spoken in our behalf. The scriptures are replete with the declaration that “what I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and earth shall pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled.” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:38)
Those words, those promises and expressions all speak to His love, His goodness, His fatherhood. So the sooner we can see His laws and statutes—His commandments—as being for our good, the better. Furthermore it is encouraging to know there is nothing we can do that would forever put us permanently beyond the reach of His mercy and His redemption. His kindness will not be taken from us. His faithfulness will not fail. He will not break His promises, and He has promised to stand by us forever and, if we wish it, to redeem our souls from sin.
Trust in all the things God has spoken. Know that if you want to have His grace, you can. God always keeps his covenants with us. We can find great joy in life if we will keep our covenants with Him. ~Jeffrey R. Holland, For Times of Trouble (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2012) 113-14
(Posts with a preamble asterisk are for general audience and not specific to the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)
