Audience: Spotsylvania Ward
Location: Fredericksburg, Virginia, United States of America
Date: 20 March 2022
Introduce Myself and the Topic
Good morning. For those of you that don’t know me, my name is David Mitchell. I am here on assignment as a Stake High Councilor. Allow me to briefly introduce myself. I live in the Massaponax Ward with my wife, Rachael, and with 5 of our 6 children. I have 5 sons from the age of 23 to 9. And our daughter is 4. My wife and I grew up in northern Virginia and met in middle school. Since being married, we have lived in West Virginia and Alabama, and 10 years ago moved back to Virginia and have lived in the Massaponax Ward since.
For the topic I am speaking on, Brother Wangberg a few weeks ago gave me your theme for this month as: Love One Another / Finding the Good in Everyone.
We sometimes call various principles as being central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This certainly qualifies as one of those. I see Love as the necessary, and in fact, the only motivator that makes the gospel actually work. Find the Good in Everyone requires recognizing both your own and others’ true and most fundamental identity as a child of God. And although these are principals that are easy to understand, we all fail when it comes to the execution of them.
My hope and prayer is I can share a few thoughts that can motivate each of us to be just a little bit better.
A Stream of Thoughts
As I have pondered this talk for the last few weeks I have had a flood of thoughts. I plan on focusing on just a few, but I want to briefly share some of the others, just in case it gives a spark of inspiration.
- The First Epistle of John, chapter 4. Some of the highlights:
7 Beloved, let us alove one another: for blove is of God; and every one that loveth is cborn of God, and knoweth God.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. - Then thinking about a chapter earlier, in 1 John, chapter 3, verse 2, brought to mind Moroni, chapter 7, verses 47 and 48:
47 But acharity is the pure blove of Christ, and it endureth cforever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.
48 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, apray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true bfollowers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall cbe like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be dpurified even as he is pure. Amen. - And that verse always reminds me of Ether, chapter 12, verses 33 and 34:
33 And again, I remember that thou hast said that thou hast aloved the world, even unto the laying down of thy life for the world, that thou mightest take it again to prepare a place for the children of men.
34 And now I know that this alove which thou hast had for the children of men is charity; wherefore, except men shall have charity they cannot inherit that place which thou hast prepared in the mansions of thy Father. - I pondered the example of the Savior. The Atonement of Jesus Christ. The relationship of being forgiven and our willingness to forgive others.
- I thought about a book I read about 20 years ago. It is called “Spirituality: What It Is”. It was published in 1959 by a Sikh spiritual master named Sant Kirpal Singh. I found myself a few nights ago at 3 am re-reading the book. I could actually talk about the ideas he presents for hours, but the reason I thought about it is because of one of his central points. He asserts that a true religion must be based on the foundational principal of love. When a religion as a whole, or as an individual, is no longer motivated by love then the power of God is no longer with them. And when we act with love, that is an expression of God. He portrays it much more eloquently than I am here, but I didn’t find it appropriate to simply quote several pages from his book directly.
- I thought about the parable of the Good Samaritan, and how that defines who is our neighbor, and who we should love.
- Perhaps the most pervasive thought I’ve had the last few weeks about this talk comes from when I was substitute teaching Seminary last October. It is from this experience I want to further explore in this talk.
Who We Should Love
I can’t remember the Seminary lesson or what prompted me to talk about our need to love everyone. But I clearly remember one response. When I said we need to love everyone, one of the students said, “Oh, I’m only going to love those that deserve it.”
From that one statement I have had hours and hours of thought. At the time, we sidetracked the planned lesson and dug into it a bit. We looked at the scriptures, some of the ones I already shared. We talked about the Atonement of Jesus Christ, of grace and mercy. I’m not sure any of that really sunk in or changed attitudes.
I think first we should ask, is that statement true? Is it true we are only going to love those that “deserve it?” I hope we would all answer “I am going to love everyone!” But in reality, how do we actually behave?
Are there people that have wronged us, hurt us, even abused us? Do we find ourselves withholding our love from those people? I want to stress, that loving somebody does NOT mean we allow somebody to continue hurting us. I have often thought that “trust” is greater than love. I believe that God loves all of us, but it’s a narrower field of those he trusts. Along the same vein, I have sometimes wondered, can I love somebody without liking them? This is all to say, being asked to love EVERYONE, and being asked to forgive EVERYONE, is a very difficult ask. These are commandments, that without doubt, we will need a lifetime for improvement.
Perhaps, worse than withholding love from an individual is holding biases and prejudices towards groups of people. Beyond race, religion, and ethnicity, we find ourselves in very tribalistic times. We may find ourselves reading a whole lot into somebody else wearing, or not wearing, a mask. In many ways, our news outlets and social media further divide us and stir us to anger. Either we hear something we disagree with and we feel is clearly wrong, clueless, even perhaps evil and we become angry. Or, we hear things we already agree with and get whipped up into a false “righteous indignation”. Take notice how you feel when you consume media. Remember that we are all children of our Heavenly Father, and brothers and sisters in God’s family.
So, back to Seminary, do we also only love those that “deserve it”? I believe that truly is a serious question we should ask ourselves.
The entire concept of “deserve” does miss the whole point of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Atonement of Jesus Christ created a path so that we DON’T get what we deserve. Jacob describes what we “deserve” and our rescue from it in 2 Nephi, chapter 9, verses 9 and 10:
9 And our spirits must have become alike unto him, and we become devils, bangels to a cdevil, to be dshut out from the presence of our God, and to remain with the father of elies, in misery, like unto himself; yea, to that being who fbeguiled our first parents, who gtransformeth himself nigh unto an hangel of light, and istirreth up the children of men unto jsecret combinations of murder and all manner of secret works of darkness.
10 O how great the agoodness of our God, who prepareth a way for our bescape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, cdeath and dhell, which I call the death of the body, and also the death of the spirit.
Due to the demands of justice, and our sin, what we deserve is to be shut out of the presence of God forever and to lose our bodies at death. This is the same fate as the devil.
So, thank goodness the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not a gospel of what you deserve. But it is a gospel of salvation, of escaping death and hell, a gospel of mercy and grace. It is a gospel of repentance and of change. It is a gospel of Love.
It is ungrateful of us to plead for mercy and forgiveness, the results of our Savior’s love for us; if we do not also extend mercy, forgiveness, and love to others.
I keep learning ways the Atonement of Jesus Christ changes our lives as we accept it. Not only does it provide us forgiveness, but it also gives us the strength and power to help us forgive others. As we experience a broken heart and contrite spirit as we become converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, our hearts break at the thought of Christ suffering, bleeding from every pore, to pay the price of all our mistakes. And then, when you become less self-centered and more Christ-centered, you begin to become thankful not just for the payment made for YOUR sins, but thankful others have access to the same gift. At this point, the idea of who deserves love or not becomes irrelevant, meaningless, even silly.
Some Practicality: How
How can we actually get better at loving others?
First, follow the example of Jesus Christ. The last time I read the Gospels I was astounded how much service Jesus gave. I’m sure many of you here already knew that, so I’m not sure why it took me so long to see it as profoundly as I did. But either way, look at Jesus’ mortal life and examine how he lived it.
Second, give service. I am not sure if it is psychology or the workings of the Spirit, or some combination. But, I know, as I have served others, it becomes impossible not to feel love for them. I think any parent can attest, the amount of sacrifice of sleep, time and energy that it takes to care for a newborn changes your life. After you’ve already done all you can for them already, there is no good parent who would not do yet more. And if we can be like that in even just a little way as mortals, think of what our Savior has already done for us, and how he must feel towards all of us. If you find your heart becoming cold and closed, the best way to warm and open your heart is to serve others.
Third, as Moroni implored us, “pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love”. This is something we can pray for. It is a gift our Heavenly Father can actually give us. And this is a gift we should really want. Both in 1 John and in the book of Moroni, it teaches us that having God’s love, purifies us, makes us like him, and because we are like him we will recognize him, see him as he is, and know him.
Conclusion
I close with my testimony. I know Jesus Christ is my Savior. I know that every single day I continue to need his mercy and love. I know that through the Atonement, I can be forgiven, and also I can forgive others. I hope and pray we can all be filled with the love of Christ towards others.
I say these things….