Jesus applied the covenant to obey and to teach the fullness of “the law and commandments of the Father” (3 Nephi 12:19), including repentance. He pointed out that we must keep every “jot and tittle” of the law, since it was not destroyed, but fulfilled (v. 18). He asked us to offer a “broken heart and contrite spirit” as a sacrifice (see already 3 Nephi 9:20), and to come to Him and be saved. He presented here both a law of sacrifice and a law of obedience. Jesus would then continue further by giving the higher aspects of the law once these first two foundational laws were understood and accepted.
Here we learn that Jesus gave many important commandments, and we in the Church should also be clear on that. These commandments range from keeping the Sabbath Day holy to loving your neighbor as yourself. They incorporate many things that we should encourage each other to do. The laws and doctrines of the Kingdom of God constitute an interwoven fabric. As Neal A. Maxwell has said at the end of his book Whom the Lord Loveth, “The doctrines of the Church need each other as much as the people of the Church need each other. We dare not break the doctrines apart or specialize within them, because we need them all,” and because they all need each other as one great whole.