Being Nice Isn't Enough: Love Wins, but Love Isn't All-Encompassing Acceptance

I attended a sermon at a local church where I lived a while ago to support a friend who was giving the sermon. The topic he had been assigned was based on a couple of passages from the Old and New Testaments, and his sermon title was, "Being Nice is Not Enough".

It was an excellent sermon, and the main point was that we all need something to use as our foundational standards that we uphold as good, right and true. Essentially, he said that we simply have to stand for something - and that we can't accept the spirit of the Bible statements about love without trying to distinguish between acceptable actions and unacceptable actions. Of course, making that distinction can be very hard for many people, and it ought to be done with fear and trembling, but drawing a line with regard to actions is an important part of the Gospel as taught in our scriptures.

Yes, love does win - absolutely. What "love" means, however, is the real billion dollar question - and I believe trying to learn to do so charitably and without unrighteous judgment is a big part of our purpose in mortality.