"The Prime Directive has been delivered to us pointedly by the Savior no fewer than three times in John’s Gospel alone: ’A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another’ (John 13:34-35). ’This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends’ (John 15:12-13). ’These things I command you, that ye love one another’ (John 15:17).
“…This is not emotional fluff. This is not pie in the sky, wishful thinking, or idealistic gas. Love is not some subsidiary principle that allows the weepy among us to go off on a crying jag. It’s not just something thrown in for the benefit of the sisters or for the super-sensitive ”artsy“ types. It is not an option that may be ignored by those who would prefer not to clutter their lives with other peoples’ problems. There is a grand key here, probably the grandest of them all. It is this: the heart and soul of the gospel is love, and all the rest is commentary. Whatever else we may perceive religion to be, we are wrong—for true religion is love in action—God’s love for us and our love for God and for our neighbors.” (Stephen R. Robinson, Following Christ, p. 137 – 138)
Jeffrey R. Holland
“It is that charity—his pure love for us—without which we would be nothing, hopeless, of all men and women most miserable… But the ‘pure love of Christ’ Mormon spoke of is precisely that—Christ’s love. With that divine gift, that redeeming bestowal, we have everything; without it we have nothing and ultimately are nothing, except in the end ’devils [and] angels to a devil.’ (2 Nephi 9:9)” (Christ And The New Covenant, p. 336 – 337)