Christlike Love

To all those reading this, I hope you got to see the First Presidency Christmas devotional! Every opportunity that we have to hear today's prophets speak is a blessing. It sounds weird though but the part of the devotional that left the greatest impression on my mind is the musical number that immediately followed President Uchtdorf's talk. I'd never heard the song before, but it totally blew me away! The title is "What shall we give to the babe in the manger?" and below is a video of the performance.



Isn't that beautiful? Listening to that brought me an overwhelming feeling of peace and comfort. The first time through I was so busy listening to the sound that I really didn't hear the lyrics, but reading them afterward got me thinking.

What shall we give to the babe in the manger,
What shall we offer the child in the stall?
Incense and spices and gold we've got plenty-
Are these the gifts for the king of us all?

What shall we give to the boy in the temple,
What shall we offer the man by the sea?
Palms at his feet and hosannas uprising;
Are these for him who will carry the tree?

What shall we give to the lamb who was offered,
Rising the third day and shedding his love?
Tears for his mercy we'll weep at the manger,
Bathing the infant come down from above.

Good question what should we give?? Well a couple scriptures leap to mind!
First from the Book of Mormon, 3 Nephi 9:20
"And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost..."
Here Jesus Christ is very clear what we ought to offer--a broken heart and contrite Spirit. We need to offer Him our whole heart, sincerely sorry for our mistakes and shortcomings, and ready to follow Him wherever He directs.

Second from the Bible, John 13:34-35
"34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."
This one struck me because really if you read the scripture, it takes things a step above the earlier commandment to "love thy neightbor as thyself." Loving people the way Christ loves us is a looot more than loving people the way we love ourselves. His love is a pure, unselfish, and unconditional love. His love is so perfect that He willingly suffered persecution, rejection, scorn, abuse, torture, and death, all so that His antagonists could have a chance of recieving forgiveness for their sins. I love a lot of people in my life right now (especially since I've been serving my mission), and there are many I would honestly die for. However, Christlike love is not selective. It is a love of all.
So what shall we give to the babe in the manger this Christmas? Well it is my humble opinion that the best gift we can give to our Savior is to learn to love like Him. As our feelings towards our fellow men begin to mirror Christ's feelings for us, we will experience a new kind of joy and peace, and we will be doing more than ever before to find the true meaning of Christmas.

"If a man die, shall he live again?"

I am so grateful today for the inspired words of our modern prophets. I was reading one talk in particular during church that meant a lot to me. The talk was given by Thomas S. Monson, who is the current prophet today. Below is the video of that talk. The part I'm writing about starts at 2:37 and goes through 4:45, but you can watch the whole thing if you want! :)



"If a man die shall he live again?" (Job 14:14)

It's a good question. For some even a scary question. Many of the people I meet on the street or at doors say something like, "I dunno buddy; I don't like to think about it!"

Well I am here today to say that there is more! There is so much that awaits beyond this mortal life! Today we are here in what we call mortality. We have physical bodies that are subject to pain, suffering, temptation, disease, and other hardships. At some point we may struggle through employment difficulties. We might be betrayed or abandoned by someone close. Many experience depression or anxiety. All those make life challenging, and sometimes seemingly impossible. In those moments where everything seems so insurmountable or even pointless, it is easy to lose perspective.

HOWEVER, if we remember that this life is not the end, then life is much more positive. In the Mormon church, we call that keeping an eternal perspective. Even if we fully believe that there's more to our existance than mortality, it won't help us unless we remember that always. By keeping our eternal perspective on, we can take our blinders off a bit and see that there's more to life than the trials that we're currently experiencing.

If a man die shall he live again? YES!!! The scriptures, the prophets, and the light of Christ in all of us bear witness that this is true! My invitation to all of you is to hold on to that. Keep moving forward. Continue trying. Follow our Heavenly Father's commandments because He has promised if we hold out faithful we "are recieved into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow." (Alma 40:12)

As a real life example, check out: http://www.mormon.org/me/1JWZ-eng