Do you think that people will obey the truth because it is true, unless they love it? No, they will not. Truth is obeyed when it is loved. Strict obedience to the truth will alone enable people to dwell in the presence of the Almighty. 7:55.
The Lord has sent forth his laws, commandments, and ordinances to the children of men, and requires them to be strictly obeyed, and we do not wish to transgress those laws, but to keep them. We do not wish to change his ordinances, but to observe them; we do not wish to break the everlasting covenant, but to keep that with our fathers, with Jesus, with our Father in Heaven, with holy angels, and to live according to them. 16:31.
If a man is called to go and labor for the poor, if his Bishop calls upon him to go into the canyon after a load of wood for the poor, and he goes there, with his heart uplifted to God, and with his eye single to the building up of the Kingdom, and gets the load of wood and lays it at the door of the Bishop for the poor, for the widow or for those who cannot help themselves, he is just as much in the line of his duty in so doing as though he were on his knees praying. 11:293.
This people have got to become of one heart and one mind. They have to know the will of God and do it, for to know the will of God is one thing, and to bring our wills, our dispositions, into subjection to that which we do understand to be the will of God is another. 3:54-5.
We believe in obeying the laws of the land, we should also obey the laws of God. 16:45.
Some of you may ask, "Is there a single ordinance to be dispensed with? Is there one of the commandments that God has enjoined upon the people, that he will excuse them from obeying?" Not one, no matter how trifling or small in our own estimation. No matter if we esteem them non-essential, or least or last of all the commandments of the house of God, we are under obligation to observe them. 8:339.
With regard to the obedience of heavenly beings, to which reference has been made to-day; they live pure and holy, and they have attained unto this power through suffering. Many of them have drunk of the bitter cup even to the dregs. They have learned that righteousness will prevail, that truth is the foundation of their very existence. 11:15.
The most effectual way to establish the religion of Heaven is to live it, rather than to die for it: I think I am safe in saying that there are many of the Latter-day Saints who are more willing to die for their religion than to live it faithfully. There is no other proof can be adduced to God, angels, and men, that a people faithfully live their religion, than that they repent truly of their sins, obey the law of baptism for the remission of sins, and then continue to do the works of righteousness day by day. 9:333.
There are a great many texts which might be used, very comprehensive and full of meaning, but I know of none, either in the Old or New Testament, more so than that saying, said to have been made by the Savior, and I have no doubt it was, "If ye love me, keep my commandments."
How long? For a day? Keep the commandments of the Lord for a week? Observe and do his will for a month or a year? There is no promise to any individual, that I have any knowledge of, that he shall receive the reward of the just, unless he is faithful to the end. If we fully understand and faithfully carry out in our lives the saying of Jesus, "If ye love me, keep my commandments," we shall be prepared to go back and dwell in the presence of the Father and the Son.