You can’t disobey God and believe in God
You can’t say you believe in God without living what you say you believe about God. When you choose to think, feel, or act outside of how you believe Jesus would in your place, you are showing that you worship something other than God. This is a violation of what Jesus said was the most important commandment,2 as well as the first of the Ten Commandments.3
You can’t disobey God without believing that you know better than he does what would bring about your greatest long-term happiness. God is consummately focused on the greatest benefit each of us is prepared and willing to receive, and as such, anything contrary to his commandments is less than what is best for us. Nothing that lies contrary to God’s commandments can possibly be worth the cost. Can a person believe that God knows all things,4 loves us enough to prioritize our benefit above all else,5 and yet believe they know better than him what brings about our greatest long-term happiness? If you believe in God, why would you ever willingly live differently than you believe he would in your place? If you turn from how you believe God would be in your place in any way, you demonstrate that you do not actually believe in God.
Footnotes
- 1. For all who will have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law which was appointed for that blessing, and the conditions thereof, as were instituted from before the foundation of the world. (D&C 132:5) ↩
- 2. Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. (Matthew 22:36-38) ↩
- 3. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:3) ↩
- 4. O how great the holiness of our God! For he knoweth all things, and there is not anything save he knows it. (2 Nephi 9:20) ↩
- 5. He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him. Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation. (2 Nephi 26:24) ↩