Obedience is the first law in heaven and it is an attribute Jesus Christ perfectly demonstrated and exercised when he was here on earth. Jesus Christ was, is, and will ever be the most obedient of all. Submitting to Heavenly Father’s will in accomplishing a mission as intense as dying in the cross and bleeding close to dying are the most extreme tests of obedience ever known to man. This is evident when He said to His Father, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39). Jesus Christ obeyed the Father willingly because of His immense love towards the Father and us. He expressed that his life was devoted to obey His Heavenly Father and said, “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me” (John 6:38).

Jesus Christ learned obedience progressively from His personal experiences. He was not exempt from temptations and sufferings. The 4^th chapter of Matthew gives an account when Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights in the wilderness where He was tempted three times by Satan and yet He did not give heed to any of Satan’s temptations. His suffering in the garden of Gethsemane and on the cross at Golgotha was His choice in obediently enduring to the very end to complete the Atonement.

In John 14:15, the Savior said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” The Lord’s commandments are his loving instructions to us and one of the many expressions of his love for us. Our willingness to obey the Lord’s commandments is an expression of our love to Him in return. He declared in John 15:10, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.” If we love him, we will not regard his commandments as instructions that restrict or limit our personal growth but as blessings and personal care. Some people even consider the commandments as constraints to our personal freedom but it is only through obeying His words that we are made free as it has been written in John 8:31-32, “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

In the book of Matthew, Jesus spoke to the multitude saying, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.” How then therefore, can we show our love to the Lord? Jesus answered this question in John 14:21, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father.”

It is only through obedience that the blessings of heaven will flow into our lives. It has been written in Doctrine & Covenants that “there is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—and when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated” (D&C 130:20-21). We are counseled to make obedience part of our daily toil and of highest regard and that in doing so, we can please the Lord and we will one day be found in His right hand while he declares, “These are my sons and daughters, in whom I am well pleased.”