Watch the video all the way through and you’ll feel the Christmas spirit.
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A Christian serves others. He or she does so almost as automatically as they inhale and exhale. They serve others because they remember Christ and they remember what an infinite and eternal service He has done for them through His Atonement.
When we provide Christlike service, regardless of how humble or how unnoticed, we become a better person. With enough humble service, we become great in all the ways that count.
Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. –Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Drum Major Instinct”
Opportunities to serve are everywhere. There will never be a shortage of people to help. All of this service is encompassed in Christ’s commandment to Peter and to us, “Feed my Sheep.” (John 21:15–17)
Our Savior wants us to learn something of what He knows by helping to do His work. Paul urges us to have “the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:16) Christ saved the world and everyone in it. He asks us to help save God’s sons and daughters one at a time from loneliness, from suffering, from ignorance, and from the many other afflictions that accompany life in a mortal world. In that process and under His divine influence, our hearts are changed, and we become a little more like our Savior. By our service, we take His name upon us and feel His love for those in need flow through us to them. We cannot be a conduit for His love without being profoundly blessed by that experience. As we communicate His love to others, we understand more clearly how much He loves us.
David P. Vandagriff
portions taken from: I Need Thee Every Hour – Applying the Atonement in Everyday Life
When we come to understand how much our Savior has done for us through His Atonement, we develop an overwhelming desire to do something, no matter how inadequate, to take the tiniest step toward repaying Him for His infinite and eternal service to us.
The Lord instructs us as to what we should do when such feelings touch our souls in many different places in the scriptures. Nowhere are his instructions clearer than in the Gospel of John.
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
Satan tries to separate man from God. If we are alone without God and Christ, we are in the adversary’s power. Satan tries to separate men from one another. In the Book of Mormon, we see how successful he was in separating the Lamanites from the Nephites. Satan’s efforts continue in our day, separating nation from nation, race from race, class from class, men from women.
Christ’s Atonement joins us—men to God and men to one another as brothers and sisters. As we become closer and closer to God because of the influence of the Atonement in our lives, both our yearning and our ability to bring the blessings of the Atonement to others grows. Our love for others increases as we comprehend the magnitude of the love that Heavenly Father and Christ have for us and as we understand that these two infinite and eternal Beings have the same love for each of our brothers and sisters. We then desire to become the hands of God. We desire to constantly act as representatives of Christ wherever we are, be it through a smile, a kind word, a helping hand.
David P. Vandagriff
I Need Thee Every Hour – Applying the Atonement in Everyday Life
What do we mean when we say “the spirits of just men made perfect?” (D&C 76:69; Hebrews 12:23). “Just” men and women are not perfect people. They are imperfect people who have been justified through the atonement of Christ, who have been made perfect in Christ, and they are still on the path to becoming perfect like Christ. Their perfection, their wholeness, their completeness comes from God’s righteousness, not theirs, even though they were sufficiently obedient and diligent-that is, righteous in receiving God’s righteousness through the Atonement.
Since I have come to understand the difference between being perfect in Christ and being perfect like Christ, I have begun to see people differently, to see them as celestial people, to be less judgmental about personality weaknesses, psychological hang-ups, or behavior that is not Christlike. It has made me want to covenant with deeper sincerity and humility. It has made me more grateful for the Atonement, not less. It has made me want to be better and do more rather than be contented and rest on my laurels. I find myself continually reinventing my life and wanting to serve in entirely new ways. I still see many of my weaknesses and limitations, and I want to work on those and use more of the spiritual, enabling powers and gifts and the Atonement in overcoming them.
No one is perfect. But we can be perfect in Christ and eventually perfect like Christ. We can understand either one of those two ideas only by thinking about both ideas simultaneously. Otherwise we’d face the dangers of complacency on the one hand and a feeling of hopeless imperfection on the other. The key to experiencing both of them simultaneously is to be focused on blessing someone else’s life. Then the Lord will use us in his way, may even prune us so we will bring forth more fruit (John 15:1-5), and he will give us his enabling Spirit, his gifts, and his blessings to do whatever it takes to bless and serve another person.
Stephen R. Covey
Six Events: The Restoration Model for Solving Life’s Problems
Deseret Book (2004)
One of the principal rules of religion is, to lose no occasion of serving God. And, since He is invisible to our eyes, we are to serve Him in our neighbor; which He receives as if done to Himself in person, standing visibly before us.
John Wesley
A Plain Account of Christian Perfection
Charity, the love of others that motivates us to serve them, is closely connected with the Atonement.
In his great Atonement sermon, King Benjamin addressed the righteous Nephites, who had just received miraculous forgiveness from their sins, telling them what they must do next:
16 And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.
17 Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just—
18 But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.
19 For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?
Mosiah 4:16-19
In Amulek’s great Atonement sermon, he makes an explicit connection between our cry for mercy and the imperative for us to help others:
17 Therefore may God grant unto you, my brethren, that ye may begin to exercise your faith unto repentance, that ye begin to call upon his holy name, that he would have mercy upon you;
18 Yea, cry unto him for mercy; for he is mighty to save.
19 Yea, humble yourselves, and continue in prayer unto him.
20 Cry unto him when ye are in your fields, yea, over all your flocks.
21 Cry unto him in your houses, yea, over all your household, both morning, mid-day, and evening.
22 Yea, cry unto him against the power of your enemies.
23 Yea, cry unto him against the devil, who is an enemy to all righteousness.
24 Cry unto him over the crops of your fields, that ye may prosper in them.
25 Cry over the flocks of your fields, that they may increase.
26 But this is not all; ye must pour out your souls in your closets, and your secret places, and in your wilderness.
27 Yea, and when you do not cry unto the Lord, let your hearts be full, drawn out in prayer unto him continually for your welfare, and also for the welfare of those who are around you.
28 And now behold, my beloved brethren, I say unto you, do not suppose that this is all; for after ye have done all these things, if ye turn away the needy, and the naked, and visit not the sick and afflicted, and impart of your substance, if ye have, to those who stand in need—I say unto you, if ye do not any of these things, behold, your prayer is vain, and availeth you nothing, and ye are as hypocrites who do deny the faith.
29 Therefore, if ye do not remember to be charitable, ye are as dross, which the refiners do cast out, (it being of no worth) and is trodden under foot of men.
Alma 34:17-29
The Savior himself made this connection in only a few words:
34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
John 13:34
In other words, as I (Christ) have loved you (by sacrificing himself in Gethsemane and Calvary to redeem you), you should, within the limits of your mortal abilities, help and assist others.
When King Benjamin speaks of beggars, he is not referring only to those who lack material means to support themselves, the poor in money. I believe that he is also referring to the poor in spirit. This category includes some who have a great deal of money.
The message that we take to the poor in spirit is to come unto Christ.
3 Yea, blessed are the poor in spirit who come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
3 Nephi 12:3
Following is a wonderful example of pure love and how it ministers to the poor in spirit. As some of the comments indicate, the ministry and service traveled in two directions: to the girl who was ill by the cheerleaders and from the girl who was ill to the cheerleaders.