Be Built to Love

We’ve got perfection through the atonement of Jesus Christ all wrong.  We read the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:48—be ye therefore perfect—and think of “perfect” in the sense of utter perfection, utter purity, utter cleanliness, utter sinlessness.  After all, Jesus admonishes us to “be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.”  This causes us to then look at the atonement all wrong. Sensing the utter futility of this quest for perfection we placate ourselves with…

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To those of you who feel invisible, consider this. It takes tremendous courage and discipline to be comfortable with being small and ordinary and to delight in being unseen and unrecognized, which are marks of true discipleship. A life of holy but largely unacknowledged influence means you are living as an emulation of the Holy Ghost; that you have taken seriously the charge to always hold His spirit within you. You cannot be big enough to consciously make yourself small…

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The point of the gospel has been and always will be incarnation. Mary set the pattern when she literally held Jesus inside her. Jesus, in turn, set the pattern by having the Word made flesh in him. (John 1:1-14.) He came, with the Father inside of him, to reveal the Father to man. He said, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” (John 14:7-9.) And now we, as followers of Jesus, as the incarnate temple of God (2 Corinthians…

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“Mormon” is the new “Pharisee” … a collective consciousness that tends to love the church more than people. Don’t believe me? Just ask the Brethren. What are we to infer about ourselves when modern prophets urge us to leave our immature religious practices (which were probably really cultural practices) and conduct ourselves in a higher and “holier” way centered on the commandment to love?  (See President Russell M. Nelson, “Minstering” (April 2018); Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, “Be With and Strengthen…

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