What win I if I gain the thing I seek?

A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.

Who buys a minute’s mirth to wail a week?

Or sells eternity to get a toy?

For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?

Shakespeare

The Rape of Lucrece

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What is the greatest expression of love? What is the most powerful and meaningful way a boy and a girl can show their love?

Too often, a boy, or sometimes a girl, will say that the way to show love is physical. They will say that the supreme way to prove your love is physical—by having sexual relations. That is a lie. That lie comes from the devil. He puts it into people’s minds and their bodies agree. That act, the act by which spirits enter physical bodies and are born into this world, is a sacred act. True, it is a supreme expression of love between a man and a woman who are legally and lawfully married; but to try to talk someone into doing that sacred act before marriage or outside of marriage is wicked. It is the opposite of love. It is the supreme act of selfishness. It is using another person to satisfy your own lusts. And it is done with another person’s body, not their heart or spirit. If it were right, it would not be followed immediately by feelings of guilt and shame.

The greatest expression of love was said by Jesus: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) The greatest way we can show love is to be willing to put another person’s well-being above our own. Their comfort above our own. Their happiness should be our purpose, and “wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10).

If we love someone we will not use them to satisfy and gratify our carnal instincts. We will protect them. That’s love. Getting someone to break God’s commandments is not love. It’s being a user. People who use other people don’t love other people: they only love themselves. Yes, they will talk all kinds of “sweet-talk” and give a false sense of caring more for you than for themselves. That’s the user mentality. It’s the con game. It’s not love.

The greatest expression of love, the most meaningful and powerful way a boy and a girl can show their love is to protect one another from harm—physical harm, psychological harm, spiritual harm.