I have been pondering a lot over the last few months on
how much control Satan has over the hearts of men in the world today, and how
it is becoming increasingly evident to me that the battle between good and
evil, between Christ and Satan, who both desire for men to serve them, is so
real. And the Lord needs willing and faithful servants to take upon them His
name and stand as witnesses of Christ at all times and in all places.
I
also kept thinking about the love of Christ. Through the last few months I have
felt Christ's love for me and for others through me more than ever before. And
I wanted to speak about how much that has meant to me and my testimony that the
love of Christ is evident in our lives every day if we will just take the time
to recognize it.
As I flipped back and forth between topics trying decide
what I could try and teach and testify of within each, it came to me, and no
doubt by the spirit, speak about both.
President Uchtdorf teaches "Love is the measure of
our faith, the inspiration of our obedience , and the true altitude of our
discipleship."
Brothers
and Sisters I would like to speak about the greatest weapon we can possibly
bear in a time where standing on the sidelines is not an option. The Lord needs
his children to be faithful, stalwart, and ever obedient, all while bringing
other souls to Him to enjoy the blessings and happiness that come through his
love and sacrifice for them. He needs, and is continually asking, us to love.
A
man once asked Jesus a question, saying, "Master which is the greatest
commandment in the law?" Jesus responded saying, "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. And the second is like unto it, Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law
and the prophets."
There
are three things that we can learn from Christ in these verses in Matthew Ch.
22 that I would like to point out. First, the order of the two commandments
suggests that before we can love our neighbors as ourselves we must love our
Savior with all of our hearts, souls, and minds. Secondly, Jesus did not allow
for any interjection between delivering the two commandments, teaching us that
they do indeed go together, that we cannot truly love the Savior without loving
our neighbor, and we cannot truly love our neighbor without loving the Savior.
And third, that love is the greatest commandment of all, and all other
commandments hang upon it.
I
would like to first expand on the final point that I mentioned, that love is
the greatest commandment and all commandments hang on our love for the Savior. As
much as I wanted to avoid any sports analogies in this talk, as an avid sports
fanatic, I bet most of you could have expected it. I think it is okay, how many
times has Elder Uctdorf used airplane analogy.
I am just following his example.
Anyways, in sports you hear the
phrase, "for the love of the game." It has been my experience, that
those athletes that truly do love the game, are the ones that succeed and get
the most out of it. For myself, I loved football and basketball, everything
about both sports. As a consequence I spent hours and hours in the weight room
lifting, in the gym practicing, or working out with my buddies. The athletes
that love the game do everything their coaches ask them and to an outsider
looking in it may seem like overkill, but to the athlete it is just the work
you do when you love something. When I
was a little boy I would shoot hoops in weather like this and come inside with
ice crystal in my hair, on my eyelashes, on my coat, gloves. Brother Davis our neighbor would comment to
my parents, "that boy of yours must love basketball." And I do.
But I and we did those things and spent that time because there was some
part of the game that we LOVED. And it was evident that those who loved it the
most, put in the most effort. It is just a natural thing to work for and do
what you love.
We can apply this principle of love to our love for
Christ.
President
Uchtdorf said, " No, God does not need us to love Him.(pause) But oh, how we need to love God. (pause) For
what we love determines what we seek, what we seek determines what we think and
do. What we think and do determines who we are and who we will become."
If
we love Christ, we will seek Christ. If we seek Christ, He has promised us that
we will find Him as He is waiting for us to open the door to our hearts. When
we find Christ we will be compelled to think and do as He would, and as we do
as Christ would do, we will become like Christ is. All of this stems from our
love in Christ. Love is the great commandment, and all other commandments hang
upon it.
Now two questions. Why is it that we love Christ? and How
do we love Christ so that this transformation will take place in our lives?
I
would like to answer the first one simply by bearing my testimony of Christ's
role in our lives. I know He is our Savior and Redeemer. I know that He atoned
for the sins of all mankind and that this event was the single most influential
and eternal event that has ever happened and it is the center of the Plan of
Salvation. I know that He volunteered himself for this role. I know that He
bled from every single pore, suffered pains and afflictions beyond
comprehension. I know that He did this because He loved us, every single one of
us. He loves us and He desires nothing more than for us to love Him in return.
How can we not love Him? Without Him there is no hope. For He is the life and
the light, and through Him is the only name by which we can be saved.
I
promise you that as we strive to gain a testimony of the Atonement and fully understand
Christ's love for us and the role He
plays in our life, that we will feel a deeper, greater love for Him, and we
will desire nothing more than to follow Him.
How do we love Christ?
We
can learn so much from the Savior's seven words in John 14:15, "if ye love
me, keep my commandments." and then his personal example of those words
later on in John 14:31 as he says to His disciples "But that the world may
know that I love the Father, and as the Father hath given me commandment, even
so I do. Arise, Let us go hence."
We
show Our love for the Savior by following him, by keeping His commandments, by
doing as He would do. I have been so blessed in my life to constantly be
surrounded by examples of people who live their lives in a way that their love
for the Savior is evident in all of their actions. A family that shows their
deep love for their Savior as they handle the loss of a husband, father, and
grandfather with unflinching faith in the Plan and increased love for their
neighbors. A deacon that faces restrictions on a day to day basis because of a
disability shows his love for the Savior through his desire to pass the
sacrament and honor his priesthood every week. Coaches who always recommended a
priesthood blessing as the first option when recovering from an injury and then
being worthy to administer it. Mothers who love their children and show it
daily by sacrificing their own wants and desires to attend to their every
need. A girl that shows her love for the Savior by
constantly looking for ways she can serve her roommates and friends, always
being concerned about the happiness of others before thinking of herself. Countless
numbers of young adults and grandparents and great friends have shown their love for
their Savior by putting bright futures on hold and leaving behind dear family
and friends to serve missions and be representatives of Christ. Our hearts must
be filled with a love for our Savior, and our actions must reflect that love
that we have.
I
would like to go back now to the second point that I made about the Savior's
delivery of the first and second commandments. That they do indeed go together.
We cannot truly love the Savior without loving our neighbor, and we cannot
truly love our neighbor without loving the Savior. I would like to speak about
this point in terms of Charity.
Charity
is the pure love of Christ that we seek to develop so we can love others as
Christ loves them. But how can we expect to love others as Christ does if we
first do not love Christ? We must have a love for Christ in order to feel of
His love for all people. So what if we first think of Charity as OUR pure love
OF Christ because of our testimonies of His role as our Savior and Redeemer. In
Preach My Gospel we are taught that when you are filled with Charity, you obey
God's commandments and do all that you can to serve others and help them
receive the restored gospel. In order for us to develop a love like Christ's
towards those we seek to serve, we must first be filled with a love for Our
Savior that motivates us to obey all of His commandments. Then will we be able
to be filled with charity.
Also,
on the other side of things, when we are filled with charity and feel of
Christ's love for others, it will only strengthen our love for Christ and increase
our desire to constantly be filled with charity.
To better illustrate this principle I would like to share
an experience that I had a couple of months ago.
-sister missionaries challenged us to take pass-along
cards and pass them out
-I told them I would and that was all i could think about
as we were walking around and when we went to dinner
-leaving applebees walking back towards temple square,
pass the family
-follow them onto tracks, they reject us, see the man
-give him the card, saw him smile at me
-turned around and walked off, tasia "should have
seen how big his smile was"
-looked back onto the train for a couple minutes and the
whole time he sat reading and looking at the card
-I felt Christ's love for him through me, testimony that
Christ loves all people, I wanted to do anything I could at that moment to help
that man and ensure that he had happiness in his life
I
have thought about this experience a lot since it has happened and what a
testimony builder it was for me of charity. When the sister missionaries
challenged me to pass out the card I felt a desire to serve in that little way
that I could. When we act on those desires to serve, we are acting on our love
for the Savior. There is no doubt that I
was led by the Spirit to this man and was able to say hello, wish him well, and
give him a pass-along card with the picture of the beautiful Salt Lake Temple
on it. Because I acted, I was blessed to be filled with charity for a couple
minutes for this man.
If
we seek to have charity we will begin to feel a sincere concern for the eternal
welfare and happiness of other people. We will avoid negative feelings, avoid
judging others unrighteously, and we will be more understanding, patient, and
forgiving.
Brothers
and Sisters I know that as we desire to serve our Savior out of our love for
him we will be blessed with the gift of Charity, and that as we are filled with
charity our testimonies of our Savior will be strengthened and our love for Him,
as well as for our neighbors, will increase.
TRANSITION
I
would like to speak for a second on a more personal level to my family,
specifically my cousins, but this is only because I feel as if I can speak to
them on this level. I pray though that you will all keep your families in mind
and think about the message that I am trying to deliver. But to my cousins, I
would like you to think back to Grandpa's funeral, and the love that we felt
for our grandpa at that time. We sang the song "We'll Bring the World His
Truth." I want you to think about the lyrics of the whole song. "We
have been born as Nephi of Old to goodly parents who love the Lord"
"We have been saved for these latter days to build the kingdom in
righteous ways" "we hear the words our prophet declares, let each who
is worthy go forth and share" "we are as the armies of Helaman, we
have been taught in our youth, and we will be the Lord's missionaries, to bring
the world His truth." There are no excuses for us. We know and we
understand. The Lord is counting on every single member in our family. There is
a lot of evil in the world, and the Lord needs faithful and obedient servants.
We will be those servants. We must love Our Savior more than ever before, and
we must love each other more than ever before, and we must love those around us
more than ever before. We must always remember that contention is of the devil
and we can save no spot for the devil in our hearts, and remember as well that
Obedience is the first law of heaven. If we stand together as witnesses of
Christ, filled with love, then we can look forward to the day when we see our
grandpa again, and sit down at our heavenly table and see that there are no
empty chairs.
Brothers
and Sisters it is my hope and prayer that we will all seek for a deeper love
for Our Savior Jesus Christ, and to be filled with charity towards all men. Satan
never rests, and the battle continues, but the only way for us to fight in the
battle, is to love.
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