It was 1989. I was a white Mormon missionary, a “farm boy” from Idaho Falls, Idaho, assigned to serve in the South Side of Chicago. I probably didn’t need to say I was white because you probably just assumed that when I mentioned the word “Mormon” or “Idaho.” That’s okay. That doesn’t make you a bigot or racist. It just makes you real. Anyhow, inasmuch as my religion had its own history of racism, I was nervous about living in…
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…
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…
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…
