When you think of love many things come to mind... family, spouse/boyfriend, friends, but do you remember God? With all that we do within our life span how many of us show our love for God in all that we do? To say we love God and to not show it through our day to day actions and words is one of the greatest sorrows of our heavenly father. Together we can learn three ways that we can best show remember love, its strength and how to show it: always show love to God through our actions and words, remember God sees no sin to great and through repentance he can show his love for you, and finally showing love for one another shows one of the greatest loves for God.First strive to always show God our love for him in our actions and words. In Deuteronomy 11:1 it says "Therefore thou shalt love the lord thy God, and keep his charge and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, always." This scripture clearly states that to love God we keep his charges, his statutes, his judgments and his commandments ALWAYS. To define always would be, "at all times; within all events," according to the OneLook online dictionary search. At all times and in every event includes how we show our love to God in our actions and words. To love God is to be an example for others that look to you for guidance. Through your own actions and words you can become closest to God by being Christ like. Your actions will bring all those people who are close to you, closest to God. Mothers are a prime example of this very blessing; refer back to the stripling warriors and their mothers. The mothers first showed their love for Christ and practiced the teachings of their love in their everyday choirs and doings; the sons saw their mothers love and peace through their examples and they too came unto God by showing their love through their faith and in keeping his commandments. Just like the mothers of the stripling warriors we too can be so filled with God's love if we will show him our trust and faith in keeping his commandments. In Mosiah 2:4 it says "... keep the commandments of God, that ye might rejoice and be filled with love towards God and all men." I truly testify of the greatness of example of those you look up to; if my parents were not obedient to God and were not great examples to me in all their actions I would not be the daughter of God that I am today.
Second we must remember that in no way are we perfect like Christ. We strive for perfection in our lives to achieve the greatest gift of God which is eternal life but along the way we all make mistakes. Our mistakes may be big or small according to the challenges we face and our faithfulness in Christ and Heavenly Father. But whether our mistakes are big or small we can find peace, love and forgiveness through God’s greatest sacrifice of giving his son Jesus Christ and through Christ’s atonement for us. One of my favorite scriptures for repentance is Alma 5: 26-28 which reads, “26. And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now? 27. Have ye walked, keeping yourselves blameless before God? Could ye say, if ye were called to die at this time, within yourselves, that ye have been sufficiently humble? That your garments have been cleansed and made white through the blood of Christ, who will come to redeem his people from their sins? 28. Behold, are ye stripped of pride? I say unto you, if ye are not ye are not prepared to meet God. Behold ye must prepare quickly; for the kingdom of heaven is soon at hand, and such an one hath not eternal life.” Are you ready to repent of your own sins and to come unto Christ? Are you ready to receive his love and be washed clean through the blood of Christ? Repentance is not easy to do especially the greater the sin is but if you are ready to answer both those questions with a firm yes then you are ready to receive the love of God and once again be clean.
The picture I wanted you to see at the beginning of my blog is no ordinary picture. You may have thought that I put it there just because it is cute and I liked it but more than both of those two things I put it as the picture for this blog because it represents great significance in repentance. Like a watermelon we all have a shell or exterior that protects us from injury to our inner organs that are vital to our existence. In a spiritual sense our physical shell or body protects our spirits as we journey through mortal life. Within the watermelon is the juicy sweet or stale interior which represents our spirits and hearts. If the interior of our watermelon is stale then our hearts are hardened and our spirits are dirty but if our interior is soft, sweet and juicy our hearts are pure and ready for knowledge and to the experiences that which can make us strong. Finally deep within every watermelon, imbedded in the interior, are the seeds black, shiny, bigger or smaller. The seeds are a representation of the sins that paint our spirits with dirtiness. But that is the greatest significance of all; in order for the watermelon to grow and become as big as its full potential it must start with a seed and continue to grow. We as human beings all make mistakes and within our souls seeds grow; we can either choose to let the seeds be and Satan can turn our interior old and stale or we can let Christ remove the seeds and make us sweet again. In choosing Christ it is not as easy as just letting the sins rest within us but it is the most rewarding. In order to let Christ remove our seeds or sins we must first open our hearts, cut open our exterior, to reveal our most humble and soft state. Slowly and surely as we continue to come unto Christ our sins will taken out and we will be left with a pure spirit and filled with God’s love. Once we have been washed clean of sin we will be pointed back in the right direction of the path to eternal life. Through repentance I have personally felt the love of Christ and Heavenly Father. A couple of years ago I went through a time in my life when I wouldn’t take council from anyone but instead I wanted to learn for myself. For a time I stayed strong and immovable till the greatest weakness was found within my soul and Satan used it to tempt me. Trying to be strong I continued to fight the temptation and find ways around it till finally I broke and for the moment the sin felt right but when the moment was over I realized that it was very wrong. Being young and naïve whoever I continued to keep the sin a secret till the guilt built so strongly within me I me and my biggest change of heart came forward. To repent of my sins I too had to open my heart and humble myself so that Christ could remove my sin and pour his love upon me. Truly repentance is the strongest gift that can be felt within a lifetime for when your sins are made clean and you and Heavenly Father both forget them; your spirit can be at peace!
Finally to truly show your love for God you can serve others and let other serve you. One of the greatest scriptures and truths of the Gospel is found in Mosiah 2:17 which states, “… when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.” Service to others is not hard in anyway and can be shown in little actions alone; a simple smile, giving a dollar to a homeless person, shoveling a widows driveway or even washing the dishes for your mom. When you perform these acts in a humble and giving state you will immediately be filled with the love of God. That love alone can heal any sorrows and troubles that you might have and it also teaches you to love those that you serve, or that serve you. In learning to serve others and in doing so our example is once again exhibited for others to follow. Mosiah 4:15 says, “… ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another.” Through your example you will prove that very scripture truthful in teaching others to love and serve one another. Service to others can in turn help you when you are in need and others do service for you.
In ending my blog I want to share one more scripture with you, in Jacob 3:2 we are taught that if we are pure in heart, we can receive the word of God and feast upon his love but only if our minds are firm forever. I bear witness to you that if you will do all that God has asked through keeping his commandments, remembering him in all that we do, serving and loving others, and finding his love through becoming pure of heart we will be truly happy and return to him. Through our examples we are the greatest tool for God in bringing others souls to him and the truth. We as saints of this true Gospel can feel God’s love and show our love to him and others in everything we do. It is our choice to return to Heavenly Father and Christ and receive eternal life and with love on our sides we are unstoppable. I say these things with all my heart and bear witness that they are true in the name of Jesus Christ amen.
Work Cited
1. The book of Deuteronomy
2. The book of Mosiah
3. The book of Alma
4. The book of Jacob
5. OneLook Dictionary Search (www.onelook.com)
6. LDS Online Scriptures
5 comments:
Short and sweet! Thank you for the watermelon and seeds also. Give me a call or an email at your convenience.
thank you for this message! I agree that when we think of love we think of "worldly" things. We rarely think of God or his infinite love for us.
There was a time in my life when I always thought of God first. At this time in my life I am trying to put him first in my mind as I once had done. Thank you for the friendly reminder to put my God before all else.
Thank you for reminding us that god come first I like your comment. The picture is very cute. I like it
Sometimes we get caught up in the things of the world that we forget exactly how much God loves us. We often say how much we love the lord, but are not so willing to follow all his guidance. As a loving father, there is no better way to show our appreciation and love for him than by obeying his commandments.
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