February 10, 2008\u00a0 Sacrament meeting talk.\u00a0 by Ammon Shepherd<\/p>\n
Charity<\/strong> = the highest, noblest, strongest kind of love; a prompting motive of actions. Charity is a defining quality, it creates change. Christ\u2019s Examples<\/strong> All of Christ\u2019s examples point to one important requirement for developing and using charity in our interaction with others.\u00a0 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 – suffereth long, envieth not, vaunteth not itself, not puffed up, seeketh not her own.\u00a0 Moroni 7: 44 – meek and lowly in heart.\u00a0 In order to have charity, one must be humble.<\/p>\n In thinking how Christ\u2019s examples of charity can influence me, I came to think upon how we learn as humans and what motivates us.\u00a0 Basically, how can I apply what I learned about Christ\u2019s examples of charity in my own life?<\/p>\n Physical Senses<\/strong> Six Motivators<\/strong> External Motivators<\/strong> Internal Motivators<\/strong> In trying circumstances, charity helps us suspect the best in others.\u00a0 For example, when work is stressful and sleep is extra-needful, a crying baby throughout the night can make a parent want to pull out hair and scream with frustration and weariness.\u00a0 But by applying the lens of charity to our view of he situation, we can filter our perspective, gain control of out thoughts and emotions, and act with love – even act as Christ would act.\u00a0 We realize that a baby is continually learning.\u00a0 He must learn to put himself back to sleep at night, must learn to be calm.\u00a0 As a\u00a0 parent, I am to teach that child.\u00a0 There is no ill or malicious intent in a baby, and believe it or not, neither is there in small children.\u00a0 Moroni teaches us in Moroni 8:8, little children are not capable of committing sin.\u00a0 They are all in a learning process.\u00a0 Our love for them and our level of charity will allow us to see their intentions as positive, and allow us to teach in a loving manner.<\/p>\n Repentance is a gift of charity<\/strong> Christ is the perfect example<\/strong> February 10, 2008\u00a0 Sacrament meeting talk.\u00a0 by Ammon Shepherd Charity = the highest, noblest, strongest kind of love; a prompting motive of actions. Charity is a defining quality, it creates change. Moroni 7:46-47 – charity is the greatest of all; 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 – if I have ___ but not charity, I am nothing. Matthew … Continue reading Jesus Christ, Charity, and Heavenly Motivators<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[107],"tags":[115,123,134,153],"class_list":["post-626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gospel-talks","tag-charity","tag-eternal-motivators","tag-jesus-christ","tag-sacrament-talk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9wosP-a6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mossiso.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mossiso.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mossiso.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mossiso.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mossiso.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mossiso.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mossiso.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mossiso.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mossiso.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMoroni 7:46-47<\/strong> – charity is the greatest of all;
\n1 Corinthians 13:1-3<\/strong> – if I have ___ but not charity, I am nothing.
\nMatthew 22:36-40<\/strong> – love is the greatest commandment. All other laws and the principle of having prophets rests and is built on this foundation.<\/p>\n
\nChrist showed us the greatest examples of charity.\u00a0 John 15:12-13 shows us the greatest act of charity.\u00a0 Christ\u2019s examples of charity come in great and small ways.<\/p>\n\n
\nThere are varying levels of understanding, or ways to comprehend, the world we live in.\u00a0 Babies primarily use the sense of taste.\u00a0 Everything goes into their mouths.\u00a0 That is how they compare new things with those they already know.\u00a0 As they grow, children begin to rely more on their other senses too: touch, sight, smell and hear.\u00a0 They are curious and want to touch and see EVERYTHING!\u00a0 We learn, understand and believe things about life through these senses.\u00a0 These are physical ways to understand, to learn, and to know.<\/p>\n
\nThere are additional ways to understand and learn which are mainly emotional.\u00a0 As we grow older, we learn to rely on these senses as well.\u00a0 These senses are what motivate us to do just about everything in life.\u00a0 Like many things, they denote a progression from least to greatest, from bad to good to best.\u00a0 As we move to higher levels of understanding and act the higher law, we fulfill his admonition in Matt 5:48 to be perfect even as the Father is.\u00a0 We progress to be more like Christ (see Ether 12:48).\u00a0 These six motivators are force, fear, rewards, duty, faith and love – or charity.<\/p>\n
\nThe first three motivators (force, fear, and rewards) are external, they are applied to us, or we use them to gain control over others.\u00a0 They are focused outwardly.\u00a0 They are all a form of consequence.\u00a0 We can see them most often used when a parent disciplines their children incorrectly and unwisely.\u00a0 I know, I use these motivators my self all too often.\u00a0 We often hear, \u201cIf you finish dinner you can have desert\u201d or \u201cNo desert until you finish your dinner!\u201d or \u201cYou\u2019re going to finish dinner or else!\u201d\u00a0 In the grown up world we seem to be no better.<\/p>\n
\nThere are better ways, higher ways, heavenly ways (duty, faith, and love).\u00a0 As we climb the emotional motivator ladder, we reach the higher rungs where God dwells.\u00a0 We begin to use the motivator that He uses, love – or charity.\u00a0 These motivators do not seek to get others to do, but seek to prompt ourselves to action.\u00a0 They are focused inwardly.\u00a0 They ask, \u201cWhat must I do to achieve results?\u201d rather than \u201cWhat must others do?\u201d or \u201cHow can I make others change?\u201d\u00a0 This gets at the heart of Christ\u2019s saying in Matt. 10:39 \u201cHe that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\nWe should not be discouraged when we find ourselves falling short and using the lesser motivators.\u00a0 One of the greatest acts of charity that Christ gives us constantly is that of repentance.\u00a0 Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said: \u201cYou can change anything you want to change and you can do it very fast. That\u2019s another Satanic sucker-punch\u2014that it takes years and years and eons of eternity to repent. It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes you to say \u2018I\u2019ll change\u2019\u2014and mean it. Of course there will be problems to work out and restitutions to make. You may well spend\u2014indeed you had better spend\u2014the rest of your life proving your repentance by its permanence. But change, growth, renewal, repentance can come for you as instantaneously as it did for Alma and the Sons of Mosiah\u201d (\u201cTempering Our Tempers,\u201d Ensign, Feb 2008, 54\u201357).<\/p>\n
\nChrist is the perfect example of every good thing.\u00a0 As we look to Christ for examples of how to live our lives, we see that humility and charity will play a central role.\u00a0 We truly \u201cfind our lives\u201d by losing it for His sake.\u00a0 Through charity we learn how to view or situations as God does.\u00a0 There is always a choice in how we feel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"