All He Needs is Love

    God is a God of love. He loves us unconditionally and we need that love to sustain ourselves in our lives and all the time. He shows His love in so many different ways such as in families or by calling prophets, sending down His only Begotten Son for our ransom, or even just blessing us with a simple tender mercy. His love is unconditional and is manifest at all times if we but open our eyes to see it.

    As God has shown his love to us, what has he asked us to do in return? The answer is simple, let us find it in the scriptures. In Matthew 22, a certain lawyer tries to tempt Christ asking what the great commandment in the law is. Jesus responds in simplicity that one must love God with all of his heart soul and mind, that being the first and great commandment. You may be wondering, how is love a commandment? It is not as simple as "Thou shalt not commit adultery" How can we possibly be judged by this standard? Aren't we lucky to have the scriptures! In one of the most simple, yet profound verses in the New Testament, Christ teaches "If ye love me, keep my commandments." (John 14:15) Ok, well that is simple enough, keep the commandments, one quite obvious and simple way to show our Father in Heaven love just as you would show your earthly father love by obeying him.

    But is this all? Just keep the commandments to show God our love to Him? I think that there is a little more to it than that. When the risen Lord was speaking to Peter, and asks "...lovest thou me more than these? He said unto Him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs." As you read on through those verses, Christ questions Peters love three times in total, each time begging His beloved disciple to feed His sheep. Christ showed the greatest love by suffering for each of us and eventually laying down His life for our salvation. And His plea to Peter, and really to all of us to show our love to Him, comes from the Second Great commandment to "love thy neighbor as thyself." (Matt 22:39) How much would you do for yourself for your own Salvation, I hope a lot! Now transfer that over to the love you could show for others and their salvation as well. How to show that love, I will leave up to you, but I know this is the way and Christ loves you more than you know. All He asks for is you to love Him back.

CAN you open it?

Christmas time is here! So that means I am going to write a blog about something completely random, so here we go! 

   Can openers, they unlock the goodness of what has been stored in a can of your favorite soup or tuna or whatever you kids eat these days. The can opener really is one of the few things you can use to get past the can neatly and easily. And once you do, you are able to enjoy whatever awaits beneath the seal.

   In today's world, the true meaning of Christmas is on the downfall. Much of the world is seeing just the material part of Christmas and miss the real meaning of it. It is like we are taking our can of Campbell's® Chunky Baked Potato with Cheddar and Bacon Bits Soup, and just appreciating the outside of the can and not getting to the real meaning of having a can of soup. But when we allow Christ to be the can opener for our Christmas Season, we will begin to unlock the true meaning of Christmas, Christ himself!

My prayer is that we all remember to keep the Savior as the Center of out CHRISTmas. Don't just look at the material part of it, because without the soup, it is empty. Let this holiday season the most fulfilling you have had, with Christ in the center. 

CHECK OUT THIS WEBSITE
http://mormon.org/christmas

Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

Probably one of the most used phrases and pieces of advice given to people, but do we always remember to do it? Sometimes the message can seem quite straightforward, but what about those small exceptions we sometimes make. One example is found in Mosiah Chapter 7  where Ammon and 15 others are traveling in the wilderness in search of the people of Lehi-Nephi to make sure they were still alive and well, having not heard from them in a very long time. Upon arriving in the land, instead of receiving a warm welcome as they were most likely expecting, they were immediately seized by the guards without any questioning and were cast into prison for two days. After being in prison for the two days, the king brought them before him and asked why they came into his land. Upon learning who they were and where they came from, the king rejoiced at the reunion! They were even able to help the king out a lot with various different things that wouldn't have been possible without them. 

So before we judge someone, make sure we understand who they are and why they do what they do before we begin to make assumptions. It is very easy to label someone by how they look, or what they do.

 Here is a little modern day example of this, I think you will be as shocked as I am to see what talents he has!